


Oso, or Percy and the Bear

by pigeon_prince



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Percy Jackson, Bisexuality, Camp Jupiter (Percy Jackson), Drama, Drama & Romance, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hurt Percy, Hurt Percy Jackson, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28089270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeon_prince/pseuds/pigeon_prince
Summary: Amnesia victim. Wolf cub. Son of Neptune. As the world of gods and goddesses comes into focus, Percy adapts to the harsh structure of the Roman legion — and the only stopper to his dangerously blossoming power is a new friendship with a boy whose fate, he discovers, is intimately tied to his own.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Calypso/Leo Valdez, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Percy Jackson/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 163





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This story is completely written, 21 chapters plus epilogue. Chapters will be posted once a week, every Monday. This story also has a home on fanfiction.net. I do not own Percy Jackson, but I wish I did.

He awoke to the shattering of glass.

His skull throbbed. A wire of razor-sharp pain traced the bumps and folds of his brain tissue, snaking down into his brainstem, as if a hand had thread a sewing needle down a delicate, singular path. The sensation presented itself in all its incredible, awful detail. He should not be able to feel it this intensely, this precisely. The cord’s hum of energy was fading quickly. He imagined circuitry: a simple lightbulb being fed more and more electricity from a generator, glowing brighter and brighter with dangerous heat until it bursts, and the wire cools. This is how he felt now. Something had broken inside his head, along this serpentine course from cortex to hippocampus, and all he had left was an unclosed circuit.

He blinked stars out of his vision and his surroundings came into focus. He lay on his side in a courtyard of stone tile. A U-shaped mansion loomed around him, a foreboding structure of timber and red bricks burnt to a husk of its former glory. In front of him was an empty reflecting pool, and beyond that, a towering redwood forest that made the chateau seem a minuscule fossil buried within.

He heard the crunch of glass underfoot and his body shocked itself into action almost automatically. On his toes, crouched, ready to fight...or flight. On the mansion’s wraparound porch, eyeing him from the debris of a freshly-destroyed window pane, was a wolf taller than any human being. She stood proudly, wind glancing off her tawny fur, eyes shining like quicksilver. He did not know how he knew the wolf was a she. He just did.

She spoke to him, her voice radiating directly into his mind. It made his head ache again, the soundwaves reverberating off his sensitive nerve connections.

_“What is your name, child?”_

The she-wolf stalked around the mansion walls, sizing him up. A simple question. The easiest question, actually. And yet he struggled to recall. At last, he pinpointed the word hovering around the edges of the memories singed from his brain.

“Percy.”

“ _Percy_ ,” the she-wolf repeated. She smiled, or at least, what he thought was a smile, the way her lips pulled back to reveal her monstrous incisors. 

“ _I have never met a demigod so old at the time of our first encounter._ ” The wolf prowled around him and inhaled his scent. “ _And you reek of power yet untapped. I can smell it in your blood. It is woven into the sinews of your musculature. Divine meat from the gods to feed my pack. How have you managed to survive this long, young godling?_ ”

Percy kept his eyes on her canines. He reminded himself wolves are carnivorous.

“I don’t know,” Percy replied. And he did not. He did not know anything. She called him _godling_. He did not know enough about his life, or the world, to confirm or deny that statement.

“ _The Roman gods live above us, among us. Rome faded but its ideas flourished, its patron deities immortalized. Their children carry on their legacies. Mortal and immortal blood fused to create you. Half-man, half-god._ ”

Percy blinked. _Half-god? Roman?_ This did not seem plausible, but he believed it deep in his chest. After all, the only pieces of information he had about his life were that his name was Percy and he was currently talking to a wolf.

“Why am I here?” he asked. “Where am I?”

“ _This place is sacred to us, the start of a hero’s journey. For you, it is only temporary_ ,” the wolf began. “ _The Romans, and my pack, only accept the strong._ ”

Percy heard shuffling all around him. Wolves, smaller than the one in front of him, emerged from the wreckage of the house. Others crept in from the edge of the forest, cracking twigs under their paws. He wondered if they could smell fear. The she-wolf paced away from him.

“ _As a godling, your destiny is to serve the legion. I will train you on your pilgrimage, much as I did with Romulus and Remus. But first, you must prove that you are worthy of my time, and of the empire Romulus built._ ”

A growl emanated from deep within the she-wolf’s throat, which came out as a furious snarl. Her pack barked and howled, breaking the stillness of the forest. Percy sensed danger. The hairs on the back of his neck stood upright. He slowly backed away, towards the empty reflecting pool.

The she-wolf turned to him and narrowed her eyes. She launched herself on her hind legs directly towards him. Percy scrambled back, tripping over the edge of the reflecting pool and falling on his behind. His right hand instinctively patted the pocket of his jeans, but there was nothing there. His head throbbed in retaliation.

He let his body go on autopilot. The wolf pounced and Percy dove to the side. She barely missed him with her claws as she skidded across the dilapidated tiles. Percy stood up and ran the other direction, back towards the old relic of a house. He could hear the she-wolf in hot pursuit.

The other wolves did not bother him as he ran onto the porch. He needed to buy himself time. How was he supposed to fight a wolf bare-handed? He had no weapon. His hand drifted towards his right pocket again, but he thought better of it. Percy glanced behind him. The she-wolf was bounding up the other side of the porch, closing in quickly. He jumped through the broken window and into the mansion.

From what he saw of it, the interior was shoddy after years of decay. Old-looking furniture slept under layers of dust, ash, and fallen floorboards from the stories above. Percy hoped the second floor was stable. At least for him and not a seven-foot-tall wolf. He took the grand staircase three steps at a time.

Up the stairs, he rounded a corner as the she-wolf came crashing through the downstairs parlor wall. Her voice in his head drowned out his pulsing heartbeat and shallow breaths.

“ _I expect more than running from you, young one. Who is your parentage? Lovelorn Apollo was a mighty sprinter, chaser of Daphne._ ” The wolf was up the stairs in two leaps. Her lip curled. “ _Perhaps you’re our replacement Jupiter spawn, the way you take to the winds._ ”

She spotted Percy, standing on the precipice of an open window. She laughed and charged. Percy inhumanly launched off the second story. There was nowhere to go but the cold, hard ground.

Time seemed to slow down. He felt a claw graze his back, gently tearing at his t-shirt. His trajectory barreled towards the dry reflecting pool. Percy felt a familiar tug in the pit of his stomach. His abdomen tightened. 

Percy had a sixth sense. The plumbing underneath the pool was old, but intact. It formed a lattice underneath the tile that led to a single hole in the middle, probably intended to be a fountain, and a drain in each corner of the rectangle. The residual water, trapped inside the pipes for decades, erupted out of the drains. The pressurized blast knocked the she-wolf out of the air in a perfect arc over Percy’s head. Percy tumbled to the ground, breathing hard.

The pack got restless, some inching forward towards where Percy lay on the ground. The she-wolf hobbled up, nursing a paw. She growled, though not at Percy, but for her pack members to stand down. The other wolves whined and sat on their tails. She crept towards him, but he sensed she was finished with the fight.

“ _A son of Neptune_ ,” the she-wolf grimaced. “ _An omen, but an omen that has earned his training. We leave immediately._ ”

The wolf stomped past him. The pack howled and darted into the forest. Percy clambered to his feet. The she-wolf’s voice spoke in his head one more time.

“ _Come along, demigod. You will be a great warrior. You will restore the legion’s honor._ ”

* * *

Lupa, the she-wolf’s name was. Percy was her curiosity and understandably so. A sixteen-year-old demigod. Amnesiac. Athleticism and fighting prowess of a trained fighter, but no training to speak of. Impressive control over water for a boy who discovered his father was the sea god a few days prior. She watched Percy as he bathed in the creek.

Percy spent most of his bath playing with the water. Testing his limits. He raised a sphere of water a foot off the surface, just with his mind and the molding motions of his hands. He hurled it with deadly accuracy at a pinecone perched on a boulder. He stood up, his feet sunk in the silt. He lifted a foot up and placed it on the surface of the creek. The water molecules coalesced, creating a surface tension that he could walk on like a messiah. He jumped up and down on it, seeing how much force he could apply. The creek held him up. 

He stepped onto the earth and shook himself dry like a wet dog. His long, black hair matted his forehead. He noticed Lupa watching him.

“ _You are taking this all in stride, young one_ ,” Lupa said. “ _Your fate does not scare you?_ ”

“I can’t explain it,” Percy said. “I feel like I’ve looked in a mirror, then suddenly become my reflection.”

Lupa cocked her head, puzzled.

“ _Explain._ ”

Percy’s head short-circuited again.

“My powers. These feelings. They’re familiar to me, like I’m learning to process them all for a second time.”

“ _You believe you have been taught before?_ ”

“I—” he winced. “I don’t know.”

“ _If so, their teachings are not satisfactory. You are undisciplined. You do not know how to operate as part of a pack. There will be many times when you will not be in charge and you will need to listen to your alpha. A good legionnaire accepts their lot and does their duty. No one appreciates a lone wolf._ ”

This did not sit well with Percy. Again, he could not explain it. For all he knew, he had always been alone. He wanted to do things his way, or not at all.

“ _Come_ ,” Lupa stated. “ _You will join the hunting party._ ”

* * *

Deep in the woods, the pack silently crept to a small clearing, the center of which held an imposing rock formation. The creek ran through here, bubbling over the pebbled soil. Lupa and Percy carefully approached through a break in the trees. Lupa had taught him to avoid twig snaps as if they were landmines.

“ _Do you see our prey?_ ”

Percy scanned the area. It was empty save for the rock formation and the stream. He craned his neck and saw them. A small family of mountain lions dozed upon the boulders, sunning themselves in light beams broken by tree branches. 

“Wolves eat mountain lions?” Percy asked.

“ _We eat whatever meat comes our way. Mountain lion is bitter, but it will do._ ” Lupa nudged Percy forward. “ _Go paralyze our dinner._ ”

“Paralyze our—” Percy stopped. “What?”

Percy knew better than to argue, thus he crept his way towards the idle mountain lions. He held his hand out towards the creek. Its flow stopped, waiting for Percy’s command.

“ _Do not use the water,_ ” Lupa spoke in his mind. “ _Rely on your spirit._ ”

Percy rolled his eyes and let the stream resume its course. As he took another step, the pack howled. He whirled on Lupa, who smirked. _So much for the element of surprise_ , Percy thought. He looked back to the rocks and, sure enough, the mountain lions were awake and on high alert. Unfortunately for Percy, that meant they spotted him as well. 

The largest cat hopped down first, followed by the other three, prowling towards Percy as if he were a succulent deer. He probably smelled like one, given his time exclusively in the wilderness. He took a fearful glance at Lupa. She was stone-faced. _Paralyze them? With what?_

The mountain lions quickly surrounded him, growling and sharpening their claws on the rock, splitting Percy’s eardrums as would scraping a chalkboard. Percy tried to look intimidating. He picked up a stone and threw it at the nearest cougar. The animal flinched, but advanced unfazed. The lead lion lept.

Percy was not fast enough. The mountain lion pounced on Percy and swiped at his chest. He could feel the impact. It hurt, but oddly, not enough as it should have. Percy rolled and threw the cougar off of him as the others joined in on the assault. Percy kicked one off his right leg, but by then the first lion was back in the scrap. Claws scratched his face, his eyes, his arms. He cried out. He could barely hear Lupa over the snarls and noises of combat.

“ _Sad_ ,” she said. “ _I thought he showed promise._ ”

Percy roared in anger. His gut tightened and a battering ram of water washed the mountain lions off of him. Breathing hard, he stood up. There was not a scratch on his body. His shirt was torn to shreds, but his skin was completely intact. He looked to Lupa. She glared at him, calculating equations underneath her stern exterior. He did not have time to process this, as the mountain lions were closing in again, and angrier. _Paralyze them._ Those were Lupa’s instructions. 

Percy got down on his hands and knees. He felt silly, but it was the first idea to pop into his head. With his best impression of a feral wolf, he growled. The mountain lions paused, then kept advancing. Percy growled again. They advanced. As the largest cougar came within an arm’s reach of him, Percy let out a snarl so vicious, with a glare so full of malice, the mountain lions stopped. Their pupils dilated and they each took a step back. Percy did it again. And again. The lions cowered before him. _Paralyze them with fear._

Lupa barked and a few members of her pack went in for the kill. The mountain lions disappeared under a cyclone of claws and wolf teeth. Percy turned to the she-wolf.

“ _You failed._ ”

“What?” Percy yelled.

“ _You utilized the water. You did not follow orders...and I do not know yet what to make of your iron skin._ ”

Percy looked at his feet, mud-caked and gnarly from walking miles in the redwood forest. The she-wolf was right. He did not do what was expected. A heaviness fell over him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Lupa pursed her lips.

“ _A real Roman never apologizes_ ,” she stated. “ _Come. You will be in the legion’s hands soon._ ”

* * *

Percy and the wolves stood on the golden hills overlooking the encampment of the Roman legion. To one side, an authentic Roman military camp was set up. Small figures in clunky Roman armor patrolled the dirt paths of the barracks. On the other, a near-exact replica of the city of Rome stood tall on the horizon, complete with a Colosseum and aqueducts criss-crossing the urban center. Beyond that, stone temples perched on the highest hill in the valley. Even further, Percy could see the fog of San Francisco obscuring the Golden Gate Bridge.

“ _This is the home of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. They call it Camp Jupiter, after the king of the gods. It is in every respect a military operation, though I suppose the children enjoy branding it as a summer camp._ ” Lupa paused and looked fondly at Percy. “ _You will find a home here. Monsters cannot breach the magic borders._ ”

“Monsters? You didn’t say anything about monsters,” Percy said.

Lupa smirked.

“ _You didn’t think Neptune gave you powers just to harass the wildlife, did you? No, great gods require great threats._ ”

Percy paled at that. 

“ _And heroes to stop them. That is my eternal purpose. Bring the best of the best to defend Rome. Now go on. Prove yourself an omen. Prove yourself a good one._ ”

The wolf nudged Percy forward with her snout. He took a look back at the pack that kept him company for the past week, taught him how to survive in the wilderness and in battle on sheer grit. He awkwardly waved goodbye and descended towards the river circumscribing the camp.


	2. Chapter 2

The water boiled around his big toe.

On the banks of the Little Tiber, barefooted Percy made to cross the river. The second his left foot submerged, he recoiled from the searing heat blistering his skin. He examined his foot, pink with inflammation. _Iron skin_ , Lupa had called it when the cougars’ claws glanced off of him without even so much as a scratch. His foot felt different after its contact with the Tiber. Vulnerable, like a newborn’s. He knelt down and selected a sharp, pointed stone from the embankment.

Percy swiped the arrowhead across the flat of his foot. Inklings of blood spread from the shallow cut. He flexed his toes and the gash opened a bit wider. Red spilled from the wound. Percy dipped his foot in the water again and the current whisked away the mess. The water did not burn him anymore. Actually, it felt nice.

“ _Child_ ,” a woman’s voice whistled in the wind. A sprinkling of sand blew onto his anchored foot. He turned. Not a soul breathed on the hillside, not a wolf in sight.

“Lupa?” he asked no one.

A horn sounded. He looked over to the camp. A small group of Roman soldiers were headed his way. Percy sensed they were not _unfriendly_ , given the casual gaits in which they walked, even in their clunky armor. They were likely sentries, used to picking up the demigods Lupa deposited at the boundary line.

Percy knew he had to cross the river to meet them, but he chafed at having to douse the rest of his body in the burning river. _This must be another trial. Another test._ He planted his left foot in the shallow water. Painless. He noticed the self-inflicted cut on his foot had disappeared, leaving behind a stark white scar, as he warily dipped the toes of his right. The water sizzled at his touch. There, balancing on one leg, Percy knew he couldn’t take it inch by inch. It had to be all or nothing. Without another thought, Percy dove into the blue.

It never occurred to him to close his eyes. That did not seem like something he usually did. The water, his safe haven, betrayed him. It scorched nearly every inch of his body, save for his left foot and a spot on his lower back. Something tugged at that spot, just above his pelvis, like a bungee cord jerking him towards the surface. In his writhing, he swatted the water behind him, as if he expected to snap an invisible string there connecting him to something, someone on the river’s edge.

He kicked forwards, willed the water to propel him, and spluttered to the surface on the opposite bank. Percy crawled onto the shore, expelling shaky breaths like vomit. The Roman soldiers were there, grabbing his steaming forearms and helping him to his feet. He could only imagine how bloodshot his eyes were. There were five of them, all around or below his age. They were strapped into golden breastplates and chainmail armor, worn over purple t-shirts. He felt self-conscious about his own orange one. The sensation was fleeting.

“What happened to you?” the soldier clutching his forearm asked, examining his skin.

“What _happened_ to me?” Percy retorted. “Your magic boiling river happened.”

The sentries glanced at each other.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. Percy looked between them. 

“The river. It just cooked me _al dente_.”

One of the soldiers grunted.

“The river’s magic all right,” she said, then kicked her foot in the water for good measure. “But it shouldn’t burn you.”

Maybe the river wasn’t a trial at all, but a line of defense. Maybe someone like him, whatever that meant — son of Neptune, something else — wasn’t supposed to be there.

“Maybe he’s a fire tamer. Pyrokinetic,” another suggested. “Some sons of Vulcan are known to have that power, but it’s almost never good news.”

_Another omen_ , Percy thought. Apparently some demigod arrivals were only harbingers of worse events to unfold.

“What’s wrong with fire?” Percy asked, grasping at straws of Roman history he held. “Didn’t someone fiddle while Rome burned?”

“We don’t like to talk about it.”

The one holding his arm looked him in the eye.

“Did the she-wolf clue you into your godly parentage?” he asked. Percy had a sudden urge to conceal himself.

“No,” Percy said convincingly. “She didn’t.” 

“Should we take him to Reyna?” one of the other soldiers spoke up. The others shuffled nervously.

“It’s rare a new recruit gets a private audience with the praetor, but a situation like this...” he looked him up and down. “What’s your name?”

“Percy.”

“Last name?”

He struggled to connect his first name to any other words in his vocabulary.

“Just Percy.”

The legionnaires laughed.

“Okay, Just Percy,” the one for some reason still holding his arm said. “Welcome to Camp Jupiter. It’s time for you to meet our leadership.”

* * *

Reyna, the legion’s first-in-command, sat across from him in a spacious private office. The air was drafty and sound slightly echoed off of the marble floors. Translucent mosaics painted the ceiling, sunlight glittering through the miniature forms of Romulus and Remus, Aeneas, gladiators in battle. Two metallic hound dogs flanked her on either side, one silver and one gold. Their ruby eyes glittered with mischief.

The praetor was at ease in her high-backed chair, twiddling with her lengthy black braid and the fabric of her purple cloak. She was around his age. Percy thought she was beautiful. She had a Carribean look to her, probably Puerto Rican or Cuban. Considering the stress lines carved into her cheekbones, Percy thought she deserved a vacation to whichever island her family called home. 

“Percy.” His name curled off her tongue with a hint of suspicion and distaste. “You are sixteen years old?”

A pleasurable feeling buzzed behind his forehead. It felt good to remember something.

“Yes.”

“That is very old for a new recruit. Impossibly old,” she said. “And for someone who practically emanates power and...strength. It’s odd.”

“That’s what the she-wolf told me.”

“How have you managed to survive all this time? Until you met Lupa?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, despondent. 

“Where were you before the Wolf House?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked at her dogs, like she was expecting a reaction out of them.

“How did you get to the Wolf House?”

“ _I don’t know._ ”

Percy was getting exasperated with this line of questioning. More precisely, he was exasperated with not knowing the answer to any question someone asked. Reyna continued, a slight inquisitive edge to her voice.

“How do you not know?”

“I woke up there.”

“You woke up there? In a bedroom?”

“No.”

“Would it kill you to include unprompted detail in any of your responses?” Her jaw clenched. “My sentries tell me you’ve hallucinated the Little Tiber boiling. I’d think that would be noteworthy enough for you to bring up with me.”

“That wasn’t a hallucination,” he grumbled.

“The Tiber is a benevolent river. You look fine to me,” she said, and Percy noticed the skin on his arms showed no signs of recent damage. “Are you...well?”

Percy looked left to right.

“What kind of question is that?”

“You have a bit of a flat affect. Evidence of possible delusion. Alogia—”

“Alogia?”

“Poverty of speech,” Reyna explained, which actually did not help Percy understand.

“Look, I get it. I speak poorly. I didn’t go to Eloquency School like you apparently did—”

“Eloquence,” she corrected.

“ _Eloquency_ ,” Percy doubled down on his neologism. It was the way she addressed him, like she had a decade’s worth of education on him despite being around the same age. He had to admit she was as sharp as a tack, and honestly he did not expect any less from a Rome-trained military commander. Her demeanor caused two competing urges to flare up: one to subserve and the other to subvert her obvious superiority in intelligence and rank. “Anyway. Less big words, please.”

Reyna smiled apologetically.

“I spent a portion of my life stranded on the open sea, Percy. Men go mad on water.” She couldn’t have possibly known he was the son of the ocean god, but her last statement bruised like an indictment. “I’m more familiar with mental illness than most. Have you been hearing voices?”

Percy squirmed in his seat. How did she know about the voice on the riverbank? Then Reyna barked out a laugh.

“I’m just messing with you. I know Lupa communicates telepathically,” she said, startling him. “I don’t think you’re schizophrenic, but I can certainly diagnose you with retrograde amnesia. And a bit of an attitude.”

She smirked, in a way that suggested — maybe? — she wanted to be his friend in spite of the formalities of their first meeting. Percy nervously laughed.

“I’m sorry. My nerves are fried. This week has just been...” He trailed off and glanced at the silver hound. It licked its lips with an aluminum tongue. “A lot to take in.”

Reyna’s eyes softened. 

“I understand. It can be difficult adjusting to life as a demigod. I had a difficult time as well, discovering my mother was a war goddess.”

“Athena?” he asked.

“No, no,” she shook her head. “Bellona. The Greeks faded with Greece. Rome subsumed its power when it fell, back in the days of the empire.” She flashed her forearm. Etched into her skin: a large tattoo of the letters SPQR, a crossed sword and torch, and four parallel lines.

“Oh.”

“You really don’t remember anything?” Reyna studied him as she scratched her dogs behind the ears.

“No,” Percy said, with a purposeful finality. Reyna sat back.

“Hm, well, you tell the truth. My dogs see to that,” she said. “You look so familiar to me, too. I can’t explain it. You’d think I’d remember a face like yours.”

Reyna moistened her lips. Percy felt his face heat up. He had not really thought much of himself — it was hard to take the compliment. The two sat there in an awkward silence. The power dynamic between them made him uncomfortable. The praetor broke the quiet.

“How about I give you a tour?”

* * *

Reyna walked him out of the _principia_ , a large bank-like building of white marble, onto a crowded pedestrian intersection. The _via principalis_ ran left to right, bordered with authentic Roman buildings in pristine condition, military barracks, and various kiosks, shops, and stands. Ahead of him, the _via praetoria_ ran all the way across an open field to New Rome, the city he saw earlier. Legionnaires milled about, interacting with purple ghost-like entities and fauns: half-men, half-goats. Reyna pressed her hand into his lower back and guided him down the dirt path.

“This is the hub of the Twelfth Legion, as you can tell. Over there are the barracks. We have five cohorts, one of which will claim you at dinner. We care nothing for godly heritage, though you could argue the First and Second care more than they let on about prestige.” She paused, overseeing a group of teenage girls learning archery. “Speaking of which...the river burning you. Is this true?”

Percy felt grateful her metal dogs did not accompany her outside. She must trust him.

“The water nearly evaporated at my touch. It was painful. I assumed it was my final task to enter the camp, to prove my worth.”

Reyna knit her eyebrows.

“No, no one has experienced this at the river before, to my knowledge,” she pondered. “Lupa made no mention of your godly parent?”

“No,” he lied through his teeth. “Though your sentries seemed to have some theories. Vulcan, they said?”

Reyna turned and searched Percy’s eyes. 

“God of fire. Potentially. You could have heated up the water. But that doesn’t explain why you were burned. A child of Vulcan with that ability would be immune to high temperatures.”

“Maybe I’m just really hot,” Percy suggested. Reyna rolled her eyes. Percy meant for the joke to be self-deprecating, but she did not seem to disagree. She took his arm again and continued down the path. She looked down at her feet. 

“The memory you have left. No faces? No names?”

“I don’t even know _my_ last name. Why?”

Reyna huffed.

“There are supposed to be two praetors. I have been leading by myself for weeks. My partner, he, uh...went missing. His name was Jason.”

She felt Percy’s forehead with the back of her hand.

“I suspect a god’s magic is interfering with your memory. Someone doesn’t want Rome to know where you’ve been. I thought...” she exhaled. “I _think_ you are connected to Jason’s disappearance, somehow. Like you’ve crossed paths. You can’t recall a blonde male, scar on his face?”

A sharp electrical pulse ran through his skull, causing him to wince. Something told him the memory he was trying to access was not what Reyna was looking for, the way it burned white-hot behind his eyes. She spoke of Jason too fondly, too wistfully. Reyna must be lonely, leading the legion by herself. 

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. And he was truly sorry. Reyna grimaced and Percy felt guilty he had nothing to offer her except his companionship. She gave him another once-over.

“I suppose you need to bathe, being out in the wilderness all this time. And a new set of clothes.”

Percy wholeheartedly agreed. She smiled wide, the happiest he had seen her since they met.

“Let me show you my favorite spot,” she said.

She nodded her head towards the other end of the _via principalis_ and directed Percy to easily the most ornate, architecturally-magnificent structure on this side of the _via praetoria_ : the Roman bathhouse.


	3. Chapter 3

The bathhouse, practically a monument to water, made his heart swell.

Percy, mouth agape, wondered at the marvel of architecture surrounding him, from its limestone walls to its stone pillars embalmed with liquid gold. The antechamber, the _apodyterium_ Reyna called it, circulated air saturated with a cold humidity. A drip-drip of water cascaded down the marble tiles lining the walls and columns. The praetor and him stood in a short line. Ahead of them, misty female attendants — cloud nymphs — took piles of clothing through a doorway.

“This is where we drop off our clothes,” Reyna stated. Percy freezed.

“We’re not, this isn’t—” he stammered, face beet red. “I get a swimsuit, right?”

Reyna smirked.

“You’re already wearing one.”

“Wha—?”

Percy pulled at the waistband of his jeans. Sure enough, a sapphire-blue swimsuit had replaced his underwear, and he had not even noticed.

“Enchantments,” Reyna explained. She nodded ahead at a pair of girls near the front of the line, flanking either side. They held clipboards and were in deep conversation with the legionnaires just ahead. “There’s a petition going around to reinstate nudity in the bathhouse, to do as the Romans do, so to speak. It’s become...quite a movement.”

Reyna seemed perturbed, for reasons bigger than a divisive dress code rule change. The two of them reached the petitioners. The girl on his right smiled up at Percy.

“Sign here to restore Rome to its former glory,” she said.

_You will restore the legion’s honor_ , Lupa had told him the day she took him under her wing. Percy gathered that this did not mean advocacy for public nudity. He glanced at Reyna for direction.

“I’m praetor. I’m sworn to impartiality until a senate vote. Do whatever you want, _probatio_ ,” she said.

Percy looked down at the girl holding the clipboard, skimming the long list of names. This campaign issue seemed so trivial to him. Why had so many vouched for this? Put their pens to paper? She held out a pencil for Percy, and for a split second, gave Reyna side-eye. _Ah_ , he thought, _there is a greater dissatisfaction_.

“I think I’m gonna have to pass.”

The girl rolled her eyes and moved to bug the person behind him in line.

“The petitioner didn’t seem to like you,” Percy noted. Reyna pursed her lips, creasing them into a thin line.

“I can’t say I’m much of a traditionalist. Neither was Jason.”

At the front of the line, Reyna stripped. She had a deep-violet bikini under her armor. Reyna glanced at him as she pulled her hair out of her braid and shook her tangles out.

“Get a move on,” she motioned. 

Percy took off his shirt and kicked off his jeans. His fingers drifted to the base of his neck. Something had been there, a necklace perhaps. He could not remember. The thought escaped him. It didn’t matter. He handed his clothes, which were practically shredded, to the cloud nymphs. They rushed off along with Reyna’s. The praetor led him through a lengthy corridor lit with natural sunlight from the glass panes criss-crossing the ceiling. Passersby amiably greeted, or at its most extreme, saluted, Reyna as they made their way down the hall.

“The Romans took bathing very seriously. They would spend hours here,” she explained. “The _tepidarium_ is for warm water to open your pores. The _frigidarium_ , meaning frigid, as you can imagine, is for closing them. Also good for icing sore muscles.”

She pointed through a foggy glass doorway. This room was darker than the others he had been in, bathed in a blue light. The air allowed to escape was chilly. Mist curled around a large circular pool about fifteen feet across. Four teenagers sat on one end of the pool, chatting. One of them, a boy about a year older than Percy, half-heartedly waved at Reyna, apparently uninterested in the conversation happening around him. He was (predictably) built and tanned a brown as coppery as one of his father’s automaton wires. Thick, dark eyebrows matched the field of black hair that fell flat to the tops of his ears, choppy like he had simply tied it back one day and shorn it off with a quick swipe of a knife. Underneath, his irises glittered like mahogany obsidian.

“Vulcan kids,” Reyna said, catching him staring. “They practically inhabit the _frigidarium_. All that time in the forge.”

Reyna led him to an archway at the end of the corridor.

“You’re about to see why the baths were the social focal point of Rome.”

Percy appreciated the Romans’ appreciation of a good bath. The main communal bath was gorgeous — a Mediterranean blue shimmering with rainbows and surely some magic. The rectangular portico was constructed of gleaming grey marble. The area itself was open-air. Dozens of Roman demigods splashed and talked in the central pool, as well as more private smaller pools dotted around the edges. Percy could, and wanted to, spend all day here.

Reyna took him to a private pool on the far edge, one much more secluded than the others. He suspected it was for praetor use only. They got some stares as they passed. As soon as Percy sat down in the water, he felt caffeinated. The water brought him back to life, rejuvenating him with energy. It made him restless. He washed his hair, combing through his hair with his fingertips and splashing his face, as Reyna relaxed on the opposite end.

“Does the legion like you?” Percy asked, honestly kind of harshly. Reyna seemed to expect the question.

“Yes, they do,” she smiled softly. “They wouldn’t have elected me praetor if they didn’t. But more recently, there’s been a growing opposition to my leadership — led by Octavian, who I pray you don’t have to meet. He thinks I’m straying too far from Rome’s principles. He didn’t like Jason either, before he disappeared. We were on the same wavelength.”

Reyna scrunched the length of her hair like it was a wet towel.

“He’s been openly campaigning for the open praetor position. I’ve been trying to hold him off for as long as possible, hoping for Jason’s return, but it’s been weeks with no word. I’m beginning to fear he’s—” Reyna stopped herself, but Percy understood. She cared for Jason. They had similar mindsets, similar visions for the legion’s future. 

“Sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?” she asked. “I don’t often vent all of my frustrations to a stranger. I guess there’s comfort in talking at an amnesiac. You have nothing to judge me against.”

“No, it’s okay. I understand where you’re coming from,” Percy told her. “You seem competent enough.”

“That’s reassuring.” Reyna rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Though I suspect I’m not just a confidant. You’re grooming me, aren’t you? To be the next praetor.”

“Was I that obvious?” Reyna looked him in the eye.

“I am very good at reading people, Percy,” she said. “It’s a blessing from my mother. I know you don’t remember anything about your life, but I can tell when someone has a good heart. You’re a good listener. And I can tell just by looking at you that you’ve fought in battles before. You’ve seen things.”

“This is my first day, Reyna. How do you expect me to rise to the top of the heap? You’ve been here for years,” Percy said. “And don’t get me wrong, I do want to help.”

“It’s a long shot, I know,” she huffed. “And Octavian is mounting support. But I have more sway than him, I hope. I can vouch for you.”

Percy reluctantly nodded. 

“Try to get the Fifth Cohort tonight.”

“I thought the First and Second were the most prestigious?”

“The Fifth is Jason’s,” Reyna said. “If a son of Jupiter can thrive there, so can you.”

* * *

In the evening, the cohorts assembled along the _via praetoria_ in their rigid structures and locked shields, each about three to four dozen demigods strong. The Fifth seemed like an afterthought, tucked away towards the back. Percy stood front and center in a new pair of blue jeans and a purple t-shirt. Reyna cantered along the length of the path on a peanut-pigmented pegasus, examining the alignments and taking a mental note of attendance. Her pegasus, oddly, kept craning its neck towards Percy and looking at him bug-eyed, as Reyna fought to keep it under control.

“Soldiers of Rome!” Reyna yelled. “The she-wolf has brought forth a new recruit!”

Percy awkwardly waved. He slipped his hands into his back pockets.

“A late bloomer, by the looks of it,” someone said.

“Scent must have been so weak,” another muttered. “That monsters didn’t notice.”

The crowd snickered. _Scent?_ Percy suddenly felt uncomfortable with the amount of eyes on him. The senior officer of the First Cohort stepped forward and took off his helmet. He was a thin, blonde boy — intimidating through his countenance, not his physicality. 

“Welcome, recruit,” he said. “Do you carry letters of reference?”

“Um...no?” Percy replied. He had no idea what those were. The boy’s plastic smile melted. 

“Hm,” he thought. “Has your parentage been revealed to you? Whether through the wolf, or perhaps a dream?”

“No,” Percy lied. They already did not like him. He was not about to give them any more ammunition. 

“You haven’t drawn up a good case for yourself to be accepted into the First, Percy,” the boy said. His cohort laughed behind him. Percy vehemently disliked him. He knew in a heartbeat that this was Octavian.

“Even if I knew I needed a letter of recommendation to hang out with you, I would’ve saved a tree,” Percy retorted. He glanced at Reyna and she bit her tongue. Octavian scowled.

“Well,” he said coldly. “Rest assured we won’t be offering you an invitation.”

He stepped back into formation, mildly embarrassed. The other cohorts whispered amongst themselves. Reyna shouted to the ranks.

“Centurions! Vouch for the recruit!”

In sequence, the centurions of the Third and Fourth looked to those of the Fifth, like it was the Fifth’s turn to take pity on an abysmal recruit prospect. A taller officer, with dark hair under his helmet and red stains around his lips, reluctantly stepped forward from the Fifth. 

“We’ll take him,” he announced. “To stick it to Octavian.”

The officer said it with a meager amount of confidence, knowing full well that recruiting Percy would bring his cohort unwanted attention from the centurion of the First. 

“And you second the motion, Gwendolyn?” Reyna asked a girl to the Fifth Cohort officer’s left, wearing a similar amount of medals on her breastplate.

“We accept the new recruit,” she said. Reyna turned her pegasus towards Percy. She had a gleam in her eye.

“The Fifth Cohort is yours. You will become a full member of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata upon completion of one year of devoted service or after performing an act of valor. Serve Rome well,” Reyna said, then broadcast her voice to the entirety of the legion. “ _Senatus Populusque Romanus_!”

The legion repeated her chant with equal fervor and dispersed. The officers from the Fifth Cohort approached him. The girl shook his hand.

“Welcome, Percy,” she said. “My name’s Gwen.”

The boy patted his shoulder.

“Dakota, son of Bacchus.”

Percy closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to dredge up the name. He pointed at Dakota.

“Wine,” he said, pride filling his chest. Dakota grinned meekly.

“Yes, wine. Come on, let’s get you settled in.”

Dakota and Gwen steered him towards the barracks. Inside was nothing special, rows of wooden bunk beds with plain white sheets. Another legionnaire, a tall, bigger Asian guy with the demeanor of a young child, was pulling his sheets off the bed.

“Frank, you’re supposed to be at dinner,” Dakota said. Frank had a nervous energy about him, despite his imposing size.

“Sorry, I forgot to do laundry.”

“You changed your sheets three days ago.”

“...I’m a night-sweater.”

Dakota shook his head and patted a middle bunk.

“Percy, this is yours. Possessions go in the trunks on the floor next to the ladder. Dinner’s at mess hall. Frank will show you. He’s also _probatio_. Frank, while you’re at it, make sure Percy’s ready for the War Games tomorrow.”

“But—”

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Dakota said, clearly not wanting to take on the additional responsibility of coddling Percy during his first few days. Him and Gwen made their way out of the barracks, leaving an imperfect silence in their wake. Frank cocked his head as he wadded up a tangle of bedsheets and pillowcases and gave him a weak smile. 

“War Games?” Percy asked. Frank looked at him with the cowardice of a lion.

“I hope you’re ready to die,” he choked out.


	4. Chapter 4

The evening of the War Games, layers of grey clouds loomed beyond the valley, interlocking like reptilian scales over the pale orange sky. As Frank led him to the armory to prepare for the night’s activities, Percy could not shake an ominous feeling.

“It’s going to storm later,” he told Frank, keeping in step with Frank’s slightly longer legs.

“Nah,” Frank said. “Rain skirts around the Little Tiber. At least, that’s what Dakota told me. And now that I think about it, I don’t think it’s ever rained here. We _are_ in California.”

They passed the Field of Mars, an open plain renovated each week to host revolving editions of the War Games. At the moment, elephants helped excavate a ditch, bronze plows tied to their rumps. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Are you sure?” Percy asked, eyeing the sky.

“Positive. Well, I suppose it could rain,” Frank admitted. “If the gods wanted it to.”

For all of Frank’s nervous energy, he seemed relatively calm when he was alone with Percy. He also knew the armory inside and out, which was surprising. Frank did not seem like one itching to scrap.

The armory was a long brick building off the _via praetoria_ , punctuated with squat arches and a set of metal double doors. The walls overflowed with all sorts of weaponry, meaning the floor space was also a minefield of swords, daggers, and shields. Larger, more brutal weapons hung from the ceiling by chains, like a mace and what looked like a third-century scorpion. The place smelled of rust and dust. 

“Let’s get you some armor first, then we can focus on a weapon,” Frank said. He rummaged through a chainlink cage on the far side of the room filled to the brim with golden armored breastplates and feather-plumed helmets. Frank turned back to him.

“Medium?”

Percy shrugged. Frank tossed him some armor as he started explaining how to wear it properly.

“So, you’re going to want to adjust the—” he stopped. “How did you do that?”

“What?” Percy asked, shouldering a strap.

“You put it on perfectly.”

Percy looked down at his chest.

“Oh, uh. Lucky guess?”

Frank looked at him strangely, but decided to let the matter slide. He led him back over to the weapons storage. 

“These are all free to take, so, whatever your heart desires.”

Percy cocked an inquisitive brow.

“What do you use?”

“Ah, I’m more of a bow-and-arrow type of guy.”

“Your father’s Apollo?”

“No...Mars, actually,” Frank blushed. His new friend blanched at the mention of his father. For a child of the war god, Frank was shockingly not abrasive or aggressive like Percy would expect. He was sweet. Perhaps this was why Frank felt a rush of embarrassment, the two were nothing alike. Percy decided to drop the matter. He went back to examining his options. Percy uncoiled a whip off a wall hook and cracked it. The tongue of the whip burst into flames, startling him. He looked at Frank uncertainly.

“That’s a spoil-of-war. Monsters carry nasty weapons sometimes.”

Percy gently put it back. He hefted a few swords, but none of them felt right in his grip. Too heavy. Too light. Too curved. Too long. He placed another back onto the rack. 

“I don’t like any of these.”

“Well you can’t fight hand-to-hand.”

“Come on, give me something fun.”

Frank chuckled and pointed to a rod on the top shelf, about the length of a javelin. That’s all it was, a rod. A thin, iron cylinder. Percy stood on his tiptoes and batted it onto the floor with a clang. Upon closer inspection, the rod was engraved with intertwining snakes, their mouths open at either end prepared to bite. When he picked it up, the staff shook in his hand and from each viper’s mouth emerged a thick, double-edged blade. Percy looked at Frank and spun it in his hands. It sliced through air with a crisp, whooshing sound. He pondered what it could do to an army...in the right hands.

“I’m on _your_ team, right?” Percy asked.

* * *

The Field of Mars had been dug up for trench warfare. The opposing sides each had a trench system dug out in the shape of a capital E, separated by an acre of no-man’s-land so that the letter appeared reflected on itself across the y-axis.

E Ǝ

The flags to be captured were placed in plain sight at the rear of each E where the trench branches met, billowing on the high ground behind the back trench. Reyna, on her pegasus, refereed from the skies. Percy convened with the senior officers of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cohorts — the de facto worst of the legion — along with Frank and the other legionnaires. A buff, short girl from the Third was speaking.

“The Third will hold the center, as its the shortest, most direct route to the flag,” she said. “Fourth will take the top, Fifth the bottom. Archers — that means you Frank — you all can be on high ground at a safe distance back to pick off people crossing no-man’s-land.”

Dakota, Gwen, and the other centurions shrugged in agreement. Percy spoke up.

“Why isn’t there an attack plan?”

Everyone looked at him. Percy felt hot under the collar.

“This is just defense,” he said.

“I know you’re new here so I’m going to cut you some slack,” the Third Cohort officer said, very seriously. “But you don’t speak when people of higher rank are speaking.”

“How else are we supposed to win?” Percy dared to ask.

The officer ignored him and went back to her discussion, arguing the intricacies of securing the trench. The group broke and Percy got dragged off with the rest of the Fifth towards one end of the E. Frank walked up beside him.

“We’re going to lose,” Percy mumbled.

“We’ve never won,” Frank replied. “The First and Second are a match made in Elysium. The centurions don’t even bother with strategy anymore.”

Percy looked back at the officers still debating defensive measures.

“Well maybe there should be new leadership,” Percy said. Frank nervously glanced around, hoping no one had heard Percy’s comment. He guided Percy by the shoulder.

“Don’t let them hear you say that,” he whispered. 

The Fifth Cohort set up along the northernmost trench, digging and burying traps and vials of explosives along the dirt path. Frank and the other archers army-crawled up the banks of the trench and lodged their quivers in the soil. Frank squatted just below the top of the incline so that he could see the beginnings of enemy territory. Percy and some swordsmen set up camp at the back corner, ready to strike if the attackers exhausted the traps ahead.

Thunder clapped. The entirety of the legion looked up. Dark clouds coalesced overhead. An uncomfortable mumbling passed through the soldiers, but the conch horn still blew. The Games had begun.

A slew of arrows rose from the enemy trench directly opposite the Fifth’s. Percy’s team scattered, except for him. He knew they would fall short — he could see their trajectory. Percy stood at the ready, when he realized the archers weren’t aiming for them. The arrows landed almost-too-precisely on the checkerboard of traps they had laid. Explosions shot Percy back. 

His vision was fuzzy. The ground vibrated with aftershocks and an incessant ringing rocked Percy’s ears. He steadied and sat up.

Members of the First and Second Cohort were launching an all-out assault on their branch of the trench. They must have known the strongest cohort would take the middle. Percy wanted to strangle the strategists. Percy leaped up and readied his longstaff. He could see Frank in his peripheral vision, picking off Roman soldiers with blunt arrows and collapsing them to the gravel. Percy darted forward at the nearest legionnaire and swung. The flat of his blade clunked on the soldier’s shield, as Percy whirled the other end and connected with his helmet, sending him to the ground unconscious. 

He took out the next five front-line footsoldiers. His staff had a wide reach, he could defend more than half the width by himself. Still, they were going to be overrun. He turned to the nearest legionnaire.

“Hold this trench,” he growled. “Or I swear to the gods.”

Percy sprinted back towards the center of the E. He ran into Dakota.

“Get them to send us reinforcements,” he demanded, looking at the Third Cohort, which was not working nearly as hard as the Fifth.

Dakota scoffed at him.

“You’re not a centurion, _probatio_. If we lose, we lose. Frankly, the sooner this is over, the better.”

“Don’t you want to win?” Percy shouted. Dakota looked taken aback, clearly not used to being accosted by the newest recruit. Percy decided to take matters into his own hands. He ran to the Fourth Cohort and approached some lower-ranking legionnaires.

“We need help over here, it’s the brunt of their force,” he told them. The legionnaires glanced behind them, genuinely concerned, but shrugged him off.

“We can’t disobey orders, sorry.”

Percy huffed in frustration and tried again, but no one was willing to follow him. It was not even his competitive spirit that was driving him. It was the pure, unadulterated lack of effort on his side that drove him up the wall. The sky got significantly darker, now that the sun had gone down. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and the first drops of rain fell over Camp Jupiter. There was a momentary lapse, where the fighting stopped and eyes were pulled magnetically towards the sky, but it was fleeting. The fighting continued. 

The raindrops on his skin imbibed him with energy, dilated his blood vessels, provided a shock to his muscles. Percy shook his head and charged straight down the center of the E, through the Third Cohort, and towards no-man’s-land. 

He fought like a madman, swiping away Romans with the length of his staff, sending them into comas with a furious whack to the head. He could hear the Third Cohort centurion who did not like him yelling over the sounds of combat, but he did not care. He clawed his way out of the trench and into no-man’s-land. 

It had really started to pour then. The ground — torn up from footprints and carnage — was a muddy, slippery mess. Rainwater was collecting in craters formed from gunpowder bombs.

No-man’s-land was aptly named, as Percy definitely should not have been there. He was surrounded by two dozen opponents within seconds. Percy turned and tried to appear threatening, like Lupa had taught him, but there were too many. They hesitated for a heartbeat before one got the courage to attack. He disarmed the soldier with a flick of his staff. Hearing a squishy step behind him, Percy reflexively turned and blocked a strike at his rear flank. He beat the legionnaire back.

The other team realized they had strength in numbers. Six or seven converged at once and it was too many to block. Percy was hit hard in the back with the flat of a sword and he fell. He could hear some of the soldiers run off into his territory to fight the Third Cohort, the threat having been neutralized. Someone kicked him to the mud. An anger, red-hot and violent, seized him. His stomach clenched and he could just barely see through his askew helmet: standing rainwater firing up from the ground and knocking his assailant down. The officer screamed. From the attached voice’s shrillness alone, he knew it was Octavian. Percy smiled.

With undivided concentration, he swept the rainwater under everyone’s feet and they fell like bowling pins, like a rug had been pulled from underneath. Some slid back down into their trench, yelling, grasping at nothing. Percy stood, using his staff as a support. His opponents were standing back up. He took a second to check in on Frank. Their trench seemed to be holding its own. This was not over.

A sickening clunk to his right temple knocked Percy out cold.

* * *

Percy drifted in and out of consciousness. He could feel his spirit oscillating between the ethereal and the physical, the void and his body. His eyes were half-open staring at two figures above him. It was still raining. He could hear shouting and explosions. He could not have been out long, the battle was still going.

Lightning backlit the two men standing over him. Octavian on the left, a bulkier figure on the right. Frank? No. It was the boy he had seen at the bathhouse with Reyna. The Vulcan child from the _frigidarium_. His body and armor were caked in dirt. Up close, his features were predominantly Filipino, from his mother, with little to no trace of his godly-half’s Mediterranean characteristics. His arms were folded across his chest. In his right fist was a sledgehammer with a short handle — the weapon that very likely connected with Percy’s helmet.

“He’s a good fighter, Octavian,” he said. “You should appeal his recruitment. Transfer him to the First.”

“Reyna would never,” Octavian spat. “You saw her with him. A personal tour. She’s trying to mold another Jason Grace.”

Octavian flicked a stray piece of mud off of one of his centurion medals right onto Percy’s face. Barely conscious, Percy clenched his fist. The world stopped spinning and he felt tied back down to his body.

“I couldn’t care less about your praetorship campaign,” he replied. “He controlled that water. Can’t you sense his potential? His fullest capabilities...his only path is the First.”

“That’s why he’s staying in the Fifth. Take him in the Second if you’re so passionate about it.”

“I would have space if you would quit sending me all of your First Cohort rejects,” the Vulcan boy said. “Octavian...the rain stopped.”

The rain did stop. But only because Percy wanted it to. Raindrops hovered in midair, frozen in time. One by one, they started reversing course, levitating towards a point in the air just above the battlefield. Octavian looked from the sky to Percy. Percy played dead (which was not hard). 

The rain condensed into larger and larger droplets as they combined, finally forming a gigantic floating halo. Gallons of water flowed and slushed in a self-contained orbit, rotating like one of Saturn’s rings in a hurricane. Percy exhaled and the circle was released. The water crashed down on Octavian, the son of Vulcan, and the entirety of the opponent’s central trench, wiping away everyone in a tsunami. Percy rolled over, coughed, and staggered away.

He slid down the enemy trench, away from no-man’s-land, and ran towards the flag, which was now snapped off its pole and floating gracelessly in the muck. Percy could not exactly move in a straight line, but the staff he still clung to provided him much-needed balance. He faced no enemies, thank the gods, because he was in no condition to fight. 

At the end of the trench, Percy snatched up the flag. He was hyper-aware of his surroundings, but for once everything was still. The opponents lay unconscious or too buried in mud to move under their heavy armor. He lumbered back the way he came. Just fifty more feet, up the incline and out of the trench, then victory was his.

Someone stood up a ways in front of him, clutching the trench bank. _Gods forbid_. It was the Vulcan boy. He had lost his hammer. His body was Percy’s only obstacle. Fortunately, Percy was the only one armed, but he couldn’t fight one-handed with the staff, since he carried the heavy flag in the other. They eyed each other.

“The weapon,” the boy said. “Or the flag. Earn it.”

He held out his hand. Percy looked back and forth, between his palm and his eyes.

Percy threw down the staff. With electric reflexes, the Vulcan boy picked up the staff and swung. Percy swerved just in time and jumped when he swiped at his feet. The boy immediately swung at his head, but Percy had the sense to duck. His fighting style was erratic at close range.

Percy side-stepped and pulled up his fists like a boxer. Water drew up from the ground and morphed into fists, levitating in front of him. Percy punched the air and the hands copied his movements. The right watery fist made contact with Vulcan boy’s shoulder, knocking him back. 

“And Frank said I couldn’t fight hand-to-hand,” Percy mumbled. The Vulcan boy swung the staff and tried to swat the fist away, but the blade just cut clean through the water. He hesitated. Percy glared at him, the same glare that warded off the mountain lions during the she-wolf’s training. The Vulcan boy knew he had lost. Percy could see it in his eyes, but he stood proud and ready. He admired that about him.

In a last-ditch attempt, the Vulcan boy launched the staff at Percy in a crazed spiral. The water under Percy’s control caught its momentum as the water moved and changed, forming a semicircle around Percy’s back. The staff, still spinning, wrapped around Percy’s backside and redirected the weapon into the guy’s chest, slamming him into the bank. Dazed and pinned to the wall, he gave Percy a nod of respect. Percy nodded back.

He reached the center of no-man’s-land, exhausted and sapped of all his strength. He lifted the flag up high, then collapsed down the muddied trench of his home team.


	5. Chapter 5

“You lied to me,” Reyna growled, her fist wrenching his hair and dagger pressing uncomfortably against his throat. “How did you conceal the truth from me? What are you?”

Percy was back inside the _principia_ , though the building — and Reyna — were considerably less beautiful under the imminent threat of violence. 

“Well, I mean, _technically_ we didn’t talk about that in front of your dogs...”

She shoved her knife closer to Percy’s chin and lifted his gaze up to match hers. Her dark eyes searched him for answers. She analyzed every square inch of his face, studying his worry lines, the diameter of his pupils, the number of times he blinked, the quiver of his bottom lip. This close, Percy could tell she did not need her canines to tell if he was untruthful.

“I meant no harm. The she-wolf, she—” he choked. “She said sons of Neptune were a curse. I didn’t want to scare anybody. It was self-preservation, I swear.”

She shoved him back into his chair.

“Well you certainly scared them yesterday,” she stated coldly. “Fifty-seven broken bones, a handful of sprains. The medics are livid. You should have seen me — forced to grant the Mural Crown to a blacked-out war machine.”

The Mural Crown — a golden circlet he understood was a glorified most-valuable-player award — Percy found on his chest when he woke up in his bunk. His body was still sore. He counted his bruises when he washed up that morning: twenty-two, not to mention the throbbing welt from where he took a hammer to the forehead.

“How did you learn to fight like that?” Reyna asked him.

“I keep telling you _I don’t know!_ ” Percy shouted, his voice echoing off the marble walls. 

“You’ve had training.”

Reyna stalked back to her desk, her finger wagging with a strike of inspiration. She shoved her chair away to access a bookshelf, from which she slid out an ancient book, crumbling and frail down the spine. She gently set it on the desk and leafed through its worn pages. The paper looked centuries old — one poor page-turn and it would turn to dust.

“Do you think I’m a bad omen?” Percy asked.

“Yes,” she said plainly. That brought Percy’s spirits up.

“Given the circumstances of your arrival. The legion has never been an avid fan of Lord Neptune, what with the earthquakes in this region. In ancient times as well, Romans feared the sea god,” she added, without looking up from her book. “Are you familiar with prophecies, Percy?”

“I know the definition of a prophecy…?”

“Prophecies are poetry. Back in the days of the oracles in Greece, prophecies were uttered from the priestesses of Delphi, under the watchful eye of Apollo. Demigods would often consult the oracle before undertaking a quest. On occasion, the Oracle would speak of a prophecy destined to occur far in the future. For some time, they were all written down.”

She found the page she was looking for. 

“This is a Sibylline Book, one of the last of its kind,” she said. “This might interest you.”

She flipped the book towards him and pointed at a verse. He read from the faded Latin filling the page, a language Percy could somehow read with perfect fluidity:

_“Child of sea, terror to Rome,  
Tames the bear and betrays their home.  
A birth that sparks the giants’ rise—”_

The next line was too faded for Percy to read, but Percy breathed and continued.

_“Victory’s weapon forged by own hand,  
Else gods will die, blood raised the land.”_

“It says I’m victorious,” Percy shrugged. Reyna shook her head.

“Did you miss the ‘terror to Rome,’ betrayal, ‘giants’ rise,’ and ‘gods will die’ part?”

“Well, to be honest, that doesn’t sound _great_ ,” Percy said. “But there’s room for optimism here.”

Percy put on a show of nonchalance for Reyna, but on the inside, he was terrified. He got to Camp two days ago. No wonder the Romans were terrified at the prospect of a son of Neptune. Their thousand-year-old prophecies indicated a wave of death and destruction at his hand. Rome would be terrorized and their deities — the immortal Roman pantheon — would somehow die if he did not win a fated battle. Not to mention a line of the prophecy is completely lost to time.

“It could be somebody else,” Percy suggested. “You said prophecies don’t fit a timetable.”

“Don’t be silly,” Reyna said. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. There’s a reason Neptune, and Lord Jupiter for that matter, aren’t supposed to have children. It’s like bottling lightning. I thought Jason was an anomaly...”

Reyna’s eyebrows creased as she trailed off into a deeper line of thought. He felt a swell of, well, he didn’t know what to call it. Responsibility? He hated seeing her have to shoulder the entire mantle of leadership by herself, to have to decide what to do with a loose cannon that fell into her lap.

“Okay, suppose it is me,” Percy said. “‘Victory’s weapon forged by own hand.’ I don’t know how to do that.”

“Forgive me for thinking that when you say you don’t know how to do something, you actually do know how to do it.”

“Yesterday was a happy accident,” Percy insisted. He shook his head hopelessly. “I can make a sword out of markers? You know, if you connect them by their caps...”

Reyna sighed. She leaned back against her desk.

“We’ll have to talk to someone at the forges,” she said, transfixing on the welt disfiguring his temple. “Though I’m not sure he’ll like it.”

* * *

The forge announced itself before Percy’s arrival, what with the incessant clattering of metal and pounding of hammers. Odorous smoke curled out of rows of chimneys on a rectangular building of dark-grey brick. Percy could not tell if that was the actual color of the walls or just ages of soot that clung to the sides like moss. 

Reyna led him through a pair of wrought-iron double doors into an impressively less chaotic space than the armory. The open floor plan was sectioned off by workbenches and sawhorses topped with scrap metal, works-in-progress, and toolboxes. It almost resembled an office space, the way each child of Vulcan had their own cubicle, plus anvil, fireplace, and supplies. 

A shower of sparks caught on Reyna’s praetor cape as she passed two teenagers fixing a Roman shield. Percy stomped the small fire out with his foot. None of the campers paid them any attention. Most of them probably did not even notice their presence, the way the noise masked their footsteps. 

The main work floor bottlenecked at the end and narrowed into a dead-end hallway. On the right, an archway led into an expansive storage space. Percy poked his head in. Any tool a child of Vulcan could possibly need was in here, hung on screws on the wall under its appropriate label. Tubs of nuts, bolts, and wrenches populated steel shelves.

Reyna strolled into the archway opposite the storage room. This was a sizable private workspace, less cluttered than the main floor. A nicer, larger hearth fit for weapons of any size burned bright on the back wall. Percy could see a huge, slanted drawing board on one table built into the corner. A half-finished sketch of what looked like a scimitar rested on the easel. The paper itself was so big, the sketch artist probably drew it to its proper dimensions. 

“Theodore,” Reyna announced herself. Obscured by Reyna’s head, Percy noticed the room’s sole inhabitant. He was shuffling through a filing cabinet opposite the drawing board, fingering through clear plastic cylinders — right arm resting in a sling. The guy assessed Percy, standing submissively behind Reyna like a child and his mother at a checkout line, and quickly came to his own conclusions.

“No,” he said, motioning us away with the wave of a hand. Percy internally panicked. It was the boy he fought last night. Theodore grabbed a tube and pushed the cabinet shut. He walked to his drawing board and uncapped the cylinder.

“Absolutely not,” he repeated. “My backlog stretches _weeks_ , Reyna. You can’t ask me to restore a cohort’s worth of helmets then keep piling on a to-do list. I’m not a machine. I have to sleep.”

He pulled a blueprint out of the tube, unraveled it, and placed it over the scimitar drawing. He secured it with metal pins to keep the curled edges from rolling in on themselves. This one detailed a cavalry sword. Theodore muttered to himself.

“Now Hazel’s a _horse girl_ , asking me to—”

“Theodore—”

“Reyna, I am _busy_ ,” he snapped.

“Percy, this is Theodore, son of Vulcan. Centurion and Senior Officer of the Second Cohort,” she tilted her head towards Percy in introduction. “Theodore, this is Percy Last-Name-Redacted.”

“Son of Neptune. Yeah, yeah. We’ve met. Faceful of water and a dislocated shoulder,” Theodore grumbled. Percy bit his lip.

“Sorry about that,” Percy said.

“I have an important favor to ask of you,” Reyna began.

“Can’t you find someone else to do it?” Theodore retorted, taking a ruler to his sketch and marking a point with a pencil. He shoved the writing implement between his molars and spoke through gritted teeth. “I have a handful of siblings and apprentices who would love the challenge.”

“It’s for a prophecy.”

Theodore exhaled in exasperation and his pencil pathetically clattered onto the wooden tabletop. He turned to Percy and Reyna. His eyebrows furrowed.

“What do you want me to do? I’m not teaching a _probatio_ Advanced Metalworking. And I won’t be bringing a bad luck charm into this forge. Or my life. Call me superstitious, see where it gets you.” 

“ _Help_ him with it,” Reyna begged. There was an odd tension between the two of them that Percy picked up on. Like Theodore was in her good graces but not the other way around. “His quest, whenever it may come, cannot succeed without a weapon he made for himself. It is in the text. I will show you...Theodore, you’re the only one I trust to do this.” 

He looked from Reyna to Percy and back again. Percy could tell in Reyna’s eyes she meant business. Lupa taught her well. He could see Theodore’s desire to argue with the praetor, but he folded.

“Fine.” He turned back to his work. Reyna strained a grin. 

“Well, I have pegasus-flying lessons to teach,” she turned to walk out. “Thank you, Theodore. I mean it.”

“Uh-huh.” And she disappeared. Silence except the crackling of the fire and the scratching of Theodore’s pencil on paper.

“Uh, sorry again about yesterday,” Percy said.

“You won fair and square,” Theodore stated bluntly.

“I’ve still got a headache from that hammer throw,” Percy said, as if he were an athlete congratulating the losing team. Theodore did not reply. He simply adjusted his ruler and continued his editing. Percy pursed his lips.

“Were you expecting an apology for that?” Theodore asked.

“What? Uh, no, um,” Percy stammered. “I was just making conversation.”

“Apologizing isn’t very Roman.”

“So I’ve heard,” Percy rolled his eyes. “So, when can we get started on this project?”

“Not today.”

“Reyna thinks this is kind of urgent, so…”

Theodore slammed his ruler on the table. His face got visibly redder with the flare of his temper.

“Do you expect me to drop everything I’m doing to help you? Is this a Big Three ego thing? You want special treatment because your daddy’s the sea god?”

“What? No—” Percy stuttered.

“If you haven’t noticed, Percy, you’re in the Fifth Cohort. The lowest of the low. We don’t care about parentage here.”

Percy’s anger came to a boil.

“That’s not what you thought yesterday,” Percy pressed.

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard you and Octavian talking. You thought I was unconscious. You wanted me to be in one of the _prestigious_ cohorts.”

Theodore’s eyes flashed darkly. Percy continued.

“You know, I had thought you seemed reasonable, unlike him. But it turns out you’re just his muscle. I can’t imagine why Reyna trusts you.”

“I’m nobody’s muscle,” Theodore scoffed. “Octavian cares about being praetor. I care about the Second Cohort and the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. Sometimes those interests align. Now I suggest you get out of my workshop before I change my mind about helping you.”

He went back to his work. Percy shook his head in disbelief, then left without another word.


	6. Chapter 6

Under the California sun, New Rome bloomed a verdant green, adding to the air a pungent aroma of sweet cherry blossoms and lilies. Percy sat at a picnic table of polished birch, surrounded by a garden of hyacinths, honeysuckle, and willow trees. Ducklings bathed in a nearby pond, fed by young children and their demigod parents tossing pieces of a fresh loaf of pumpernickel bread from a nearby bakery. A dirt pathway wound through the trees to the main urban square, a gorgeous reincarnation of the ancient city complete with bumpy cobblestone roads, precise architecture, and the bustle of a magical, wealthy empire. 

He turned at the crunch of boots on gravel. Theodore came marching up the trail, rolls of cumbersome sketch paper and drawing implements stuffed under his arms. His shoulder had healed. He wore his purple Camp Jupiter t-shirt and a pair of black jeans, supplemented by a pair of leather Rowans on his feet. Percy waved and Theodore scowled. He felt nervous, all of a sudden.

Theodore dumped his supplies on the picnic table and quickly reorganized as his things scattered haphazardly, one of which was a piece of cowhide, once unrolled, that contained rows of drawing instruments.

“Hi,” Percy said. Theodore glanced up at him, raising his eyebrows.

“Hi,” he breathed.

“How has your day been so far?” Percy inquired, tapping his finger on the bench.

“I’ve been up since four in the morning. I’m tired.”

“Oh,” Percy frowned. “Why so early?”

Theodore gave him an insincere smile.

“Work,” he said. “Gotta fit you into my schedule, don’t I?”

A ball of nerves clung to Percy’s stomach and throat. The way Theodore openly disliked him bothered him. He hated feeling like an annoyance.

“You don’t need to do that…” Percy began, but Theodore cut him off.

“You wanted my help, didn’t you? Well, I’m helping.” He spread out a blank blueprint across the table and smoothed out the creases. The edges flapped in the light breeze.

“Can you grab a couple of rocks from behind you?” Theodore asked. Percy bent over and scavenged for some heavy stones sitting in the grass. He placed them on the corners of the paper. Theodore gracefully sat down, reluctantly entering a new level of focus. Elbows on the table, he laced his fingers and exhaled into his fists. Percy took a look at Theodore’s bulky forearm. He had a tattoo like Reyna’s, and like everyone else he had met: the letters SPQR, a symbol for godly parent, and lines for number of years of service. Theodore’s was a hammer and anvil — the symbol of Vulcan — and had two lines for two years. He looked up at Percy. His eyes were big and brown, like a bull’s.

“Draw me what you want,” Theodore said and pushed his supplies towards him expectantly. Percy bit his lip and hesitantly grabbed one of Theodore’s graphite pencils out of its sheath. He looked at the blueprint, its grid of squares suddenly intimidated him. He was never much of an artist. Percy doodled on the bottom of the page.

“What in the name of Pluto is that?”

“It’s a trident,” Percy scoffed, offended, self-consciously sheltering his drawing like he would a puppy from the cold. “Because of, like, my dad you know.”

“That looks like a tuning fork. Or something I’d use to bale hay. Why does it have two teeth? It is literally spelled out for you. _Tri dent_. Three teeth.”

Percy bit the tip of his index finger.

“Shoot, is this a dident?”

“ _Di-_ is the Greek root for two. In Latin, it’s _bi-_. Like bicycle.”

“So I can name my weapon Joe?”

Theodore squinted, searching Percy for a brain cell.

“What?” Theodore asked.

“Joe Bident.”

Theodore looked like he wanted to throttle him. Percy lost it. He put his forehead in his hands, cackling to himself. Theodore’s cold demeanor cracked and he suppressed a laugh.

“Oh gods,” Theodore groaned. “Give me the pencil.”

Percy handed it to Theodore, hearing the smile in his voice even if he refused to show it. Theodore tilted his head, thinking for a moment, then drew a line against a metal straight-edge. He grabbed a compass and protractor, took some measurements, then, over the span of thirty minutes, sketched out the shaft of the weapon with an ultra-realistic sense of detail. Percy, a boy of often too-many-words, remained speechless and bug-eyed as he finished the non-pointed end.

“Wow,” Percy awed. “You’re an incredible artist.”

“Thanks,” Theodore replied, nonplussed.

“How did you learn to draw like that?”

Theodore was now up to the top of the trident, sketching out the first of its three teeth. 

“My mom was an artist.” 

“That doesn’t sound like Vulcan’s type.”

Theodore shrugged and moved onto the second tooth. His work sped up, his graphite strokes moving at insane speed with no loss of quality or detail.

“She did sculptures. Glassblowing mostly. Avant-garde chandeliers. Her work required a very precise, delicate hand. That’s what my father said he admired most about her, the one time we had an actual conversation.”

Percy propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm. Theodore talked about his parents with a bittersweet aftertaste. He sensed it was a sensitive subject, but Percy’s curiosity got the better of his social niceties.

“What was her artwork like? Was she successful?”

Theodore glanced disdainfully up at Percy, surely wondering why he was probing or even cared.

“She was very successful. She would have me collect broken glass from the dump: beer bottles, trashed television sets, you know,” Theodore said. Behind the recognizable conflict he had with his mother, Percy could tell Theodore really admired her. “She could reform and repurpose junk into works of art. That’s what caught my father’s attention. Actually, Venus’ attention. The love goddess, my father’s wife. Venus wanted one of my mom’s pieces and...that’s how my parents met. A classic case of Olympian infidelity.”

“You speak really fondly of her.”

“She taught me everything I know,” he said, finishing up the drawing. “Like we shouldn’t need to sacrifice beauty for function. I mean, look at New Rome. Those aqueducts don’t need to look like that to carry water, but they do, just for us to admire. I think that’s why my dad fell for her.”

Theodore sat up straight, assessing his work. Percy’s jaw dropped. His drawing was, to scale, an exact replica of a trident, like it had been stripped from the hands of the Neptune Fountain at Versailles. Percy wondered if the paper or pencil was magic, the way it appeared three-dimensional from any angle. He thought of those paintings where the eyes seem to follow the viewer from every vantage point. 

“Holy Hephaestus,” Percy exclaimed.

“Vulcan,” Theodore corrected.

“This is...wow.” Percy hesitantly reached out and touched the sheet, like he was afraid it might bite or disappear. 

“Cool, huh?”

Theodore seemed especially pleased with himself.

“I can’t even form words,” Percy said. 

“Thank the gods,” Theodore exhaled. Percy gave him a look. 

“We _have_ to make this. Where do I start? Where do I begin?”

Theodore started to collect his supplies and reinsert them into his leather case. Percy rounded up the stray implements and knocked the paperweights back onto the ground. Theodore sighed.

“Well, first we need to worry about the issue of metal. Imperial Gold is the best element for a weapon of this design.”

“Imperial Gold?”

“It’s lethal to monsters. We consecrate it in Jupiter’s temple, up there on the hill” he paused, deep in thought as he pointed out the temple in the distance to Percy. “We’ve been running low for quite some time though. I’m not even sure we have enough.”

“Is there something else we can use?” Percy asked. Theodore pondered the question.

“I know someone who can help,” Theodore said.

* * *

Theodore led Percy out of New Rome and towards the highest hill he had seen when he first arrived at Camp Jupiter with a pack of wolves. Four ancient buildings rested on top. The largest, Theodore had needlessly explained, was for Jupiter, the king of the gods.

“What’s your mom like?” Theodore asked him quietly, like reciprocity was unfamiliar on his tongue. A pleasant thrum of energy tickled the inside of his brain where his memories had been. His mouth started watering for chocolate chip cookies. He felt like Pavlov’s dog.

“I forgot to tell you,” Percy said. “I have amnesia.”

Theodore looked at him with concern.

“You had amnesia about your amnesia?”

“Shut up,” Percy smiled, swatting Theodore on the bicep.

“Wait, you’re serious?” Theodore stopped.

“Yes,” Percy said. “Reyna knows, of course.”

Something clicked for Theodore.

“That’s how you won the War Games. You’ve trained somewhere else, haven’t you?” Theodore exclaimed, relief flowing over him. “And I thought I got my butt kicked by a noob. So like, you don’t remember _anything_?”

“I’ll explain later, let’s meet this friend of yours.”

* * *

They stood at the base of the smallest temple, though still quite large in absolute terms, an obsidian crypt built into the side of Temple Hill. Grass and weeds encroached on the roof, essentially creating a lawn where the roof should be. Human and animal bones littered the ground, permeating the air with the smell of deceased mice. Percy was afraid of stepping on one.

“Hazel!” Theodore shouted. A head of hair popped up from the edge of the roof. Shadows obscured the person’s face.

“Theodore!” a girl yelled back, and the head disappeared from whence it came.

Percy heard movement, then a young black girl, about thirteen years old, slid down the side of the hill and raced up to them. Her eyes were golden and her hair fell in ringlets around her face. She was followed by a pale, olive-skinned boy about the same age, who trailed her like a hearse. His hair framed his face like blackout curtains. He made fleeting eye contact with Percy, but just as quickly looked away.

“What’s up?” Hazel looked from Theodore to Percy. “How’s my sword coming along?”

“Percy, this is Hazel. She is a daughter of Pluto,” Theodore said. “And this is Nico, her half-brother. And the sword’s on the backburner, sorry.”

Percy shook Hazel’s hand. He held out his hand for Nico. The boy hesitated, but shook his hand as well. Nico winced when he withdrew. Percy hoped he didn’t hurt him. It was strange to see Theodore interact so pleasantly with this pair of misfits. He wondered if Theodore had other friends.

“Don’t worry about it, take your time,” Hazel said cheerfully. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“Reyna’s business. Important business,” Theodore said. “We were hoping you could find some precious metals for us.”

Hazel seemed to pull into herself. Her happy-go-lucky personality closed like a flower bud. She unsubtly looked to Nico for help.

“I— I don’t think that’s a good idea. For me. Right now.”

“It’s fine,” Nico interrupted. “Just don’t touch the ore until it’s consecrated.” 

Theodore gave her a sincere smile that bordered on pleading. Hazel grimaced and steeled herself. Percy knew enough not to question this sudden awkwardness in what would supposedly be a normal transaction.

“Right this way,” Hazel said. She led them down the slope towards the far outskirts of New Rome, by the Oakland hills. The land flattened, and Nico, Percy, and Theodore waited as Hazel paced the open field.

“What’s she doing?” Percy asked.

“Hazel can sense riches under the earth. And control them to some degree. A blessing from our father,” Nico explained. A football field away, Hazel stopped. She turned and shouted.

“Over here!”

By the time the three of them had gotten over to Hazel, she was sitting on the ground, out of breath. She gestured around her.

“Sorry,” she breathed. “That took a lot out of me.”

Hazel was surrounded by an array of jewels, gemstones, and ores that glittered under the midday sun. Nico knelt down next to her.

“No gold, _again_ ,” she said. “Apologies, Theodore. But there’s enough of whatever that is.”

Hazel pointed at a clump of metal next to her foot, shimmering like a silver mirror. There were similar ores, of different shapes and sizes from golf to baseball, dotting the field.

“Platinum,” Theodore noted. “It’ll do.”

“How are we gonna get all this back?” Percy asked. He looked to his right and Theodore was pulling his shirt over his head. The guy was burly, Percy had to admit — strong as an ox, upper body sculpted from long days operating heavy equipment and lugging metal. He took his shirt in two hands and ripped it down the back, fiber by fiber, until it was a somewhat rectangular piece of fabric. Theodore started picking up platinum with the shirt as a layer of protection.

“Percy, come on,” Theodore glanced at Percy’s torso. “This is for you.”

“I just _got_ this one,” Percy complained, clasping the hem of his Camp Jupiter t-shirt sentimentally. Theodore looked back at him expectantly. Percy pulled off his shirt and ripped it like Theodore had. He picked up clumps of the metal, making sure it did not make direct contact with his skin.

“I think I’m gonna go,” he heard Nico say to Hazel.

“Nice to meet you,” Percy waved. Nico didn’t wave back. After Percy and Theodore scoured the plain for any more platinum, they laid out their finds on their t-shirts and tied them off at the top. Theodore tossed his sack to Percy and he caught it in the crook of his arm. The load was heavier than he thought.

“I have to grab my things,” he said. As Percy waited for him, Theodore chatted with Hazel and waved her goodbye. Theodore jogged back with the blueprints and supplies under his arms.

“You ready?” Theodore asked. Percy grinned. 

“Let’s go.”

* * *

With Theodore unexpectedly being called away on urgent senatorial matters, further work was postponed, leaving Percy without an excuse to miss the daily Fifth Cohort drilling on the Field of Mars. He had lucked out up until this point, with his Camp Jupiter orientations and meetings with Reyna and Theodore taking up his schedule. Alas, he knew there would come a time when he settled enough into a routine that he couldn’t avoid the more mundane aspects of being a Roman soldier. 

When Frank met him to join the cohort assembling on the Field, he couldn’t be less thrilled. He didn’t want to stand out there in the heat in heavy armor hashing out predictable battle formations under incompetent officers. The she-wolf had sniffed out his indifference to the top brass like insubordination was its own pheromone, though being an alpha wolf, she undoubtedly knew disobedience when she saw it.

Percy hated feeling like a number, like he was a disposable, replaceable body for his superiors to move this way and that. His officers did not have a personal attachment to him, if anything they actively disliked him since his stunt at the War Games. Percy wanted to be _inspired_. He wanted to _care_ about the people he was fighting for — for Rome — but if the rest of his teenage life was going to be toting a gargantuan shield and sweating under a plumed helmet, all for people he was at best ambivalent about...he wasn’t sure if New Rome was the home destined for him that it was touted to be.

His own peers, the basic legionnaires with no titles or medals, didn’t like him either. He wrongfully assumed that winning the War Games for them would bring some measure of joy or morale, but they skirted around him as if having Neptune as a father was its own form of leprosy. His bunkmates, he heard through the grapevine (Frank), requested to be moved elsewhere in the barracks. Even then, in Percy’s phalanx, shield in his left hand and _gladius_ in his right, the soldiers to his sides stood _just_ out of correct formation to avoid being any closer to the legion’s resident bad luck charm.

“Hey! Fourth row!” Dakota shouted. “What is going on? Why are your shields out of alignment? These are fundamentals.”

Percy oriented himself. He was directly behind the person in front of him, as he should be. He glanced at his neighbors, who stared straight ahead and pretended they weren’t purposefully keeping their distance and messing up the entire geometry of the phalanx. He eyed the boy to his right.

“Get closer to me,” Percy whispered. The boy didn’t show any sign that he heard him.

“I don’t see anyone moving, fourth row!” Dakota warned.

“What is your problem?” Percy hissed. His neighbor set his jaw.

“Open ranks!” Dakota commanded and the rows in front of him unfolded like a zipper to let the senior officer through. Percy scoffed and shook his head, knowing what was coming. The centurion stopped six feet from him, flanked by Gwen and the legionnaires dispersed on either side. He raised a limp, exasperated fist.

“Percy,” he said. “What is so difficult about this to understand? We haven’t even started marching yet.”

“I was in the right spot. _They_...” Percy gestured to the soldiers to his left and right, “were not.”

“ _They_...” he coldly mimicked, “have been legionnaires for three-plus years. I would think they know how to run a basic formation by now.”

“Well _maybe_ you should tell them to step three inches closer to me or get their eyes checked because they _clearly_ don’t know how to make parallel lines.”

“I don’t know if spending time with the praetor has gone to your head, _probatio_ , but befriending power does not make you immune to it. You will not speak to your superiors that way.”

“They’re doing it on purpose,” Percy complained futilely. “No one wants to stand next to me!”

Percy’s fists clenched and he clamped down on his bottom lip. A wire uncoiled — running up through the ground through the soles of his feet, up his legs and abdomen, and down the length of his arms to the pads of his thumbs. It pulsed with the pounding of his heartbeat, anger solidifying and feeding this new connection from earth to palm. One squeeze of his fingers, he feared, would trigger the tripwire threading his sides. He felt like a landmine.

“Enough,” Dakota demanded.

“ _Do it._ ” A disembodied voice, one he had heard before, caressed his ear like silk.

Dakota and Percy traded Lupa-honed glares. With his lanky, awkward height, Dakota himself was not much of an intimidation — nothing compared to Reyna or Theodore. Percy could very likely beat him in one-to-one combat. But gods, the guy could transmit daggers through his pupils when he wanted to. He didn’t become a centurion for nothing. Percy’s gaze fell and his rigid posture released and the wire coiled away from its dangerous tension — a bomb defusing.

“Yes, sir,” Percy mumbled, readjusting his cumbersome shield and _gladius_ in his sweaty fingers.

“Good,” Dakota stood erect and shouted to the mass. “Now close ranks! Lockstep!”


	7. Chapter 7

He yawned with the force to lift a thousand skies, or at least to dislocate his jaw.

Percy rubbed the tender spot just in front of his ear as his eyes glazed over again with fatigue. It bugged him to no end the day before: Theodore adding to his already-long day, which included mandatory training and his duties as centurion and senator and master of weapons, in order to accommodate Percy’s project. So, here Percy was, bright and early just before the crack of dawn, dipping his toes in the Little Tiber’s meandering current for a much-needed jolt to the senses. Next to him in the sand sat the makeshift sacks the two had made the day before out of Camp Jupiter t-shirts, enwrapping a plentiful stash of platinum ore Theodore’s friend Hazel had pulled from the earth. He was warned not to touch the metal. He had not the slightest clue why, but he figured he would leave well enough alone as far as the god of the dead was concerned.

Percy recognized the heavy footsteps before he turned around. Sure enough, he spotted Theodore trudging up the riverbank with his hands in the pockets of black cargo pants. His shoulders were drawn in, like he was cold. _He must spend so much time in the heat_ , Percy thought, _a dewy Oakland morning would be chilly_. Theodore grinned with one side of his mouth.

“I’m so glad you could be here for the birth of our son,” Percy gestured to the t-shirt sacks like a showcase model on a gameshow. “Joe.”

Theodore’s barely-there half-smile melted.

“I will not let you make a farce out of the sacred practice of bestowing a name to your chosen weapon. Imagine _Joe_ in the annals of history with Excalibur—”

“My second choice is Big Pokey.”

“Please stop.”

“Mother Forker,” Percy suggested, then noticed Theodore roll his eyes. “Come on, it’s _funny_. Have you heard of that?”

“Definition, please?”

“Funny: adjective,” Percy said, consulting an imaginary dictionary on the palm of his hand. “Causing laughter or amusement.”

“Funny. N-O-T,” Theodore took a pause for a melodramatic wracking of his brains. “Y-O-U. _Funny_.”

“Sorry, that is incorrect,” Percy sighed and shook his head. “There’s a P in there somewhere. It’s not silent, I’m not sure how you missed it. It’s not like we’re spelling Ptolemy.”

“I _will_ kill you,” Theodore pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You’ve had your chance.”

“And I was nearly successful,” Theodore said, nudging Percy’s forehead where the hammer welt had all but disappeared. “Shame, truly.”

“Oh, admit it, you like having me around.”

Theodore knelt down and unraveled the loose knot on the sack. He clicked his tongue.

“Boy do you overestimate the importance you hold in my life,” Theodore grunted. “I’ll cut you some slack because you’re an amnesiac and you discovered the concept of friendship like four days ago, but to be honest, you’re getting a little clingy.”

“ _Clingy?_ ” Percy gasped. “I’ve known you for less than seventy-two hours.”

“You’re the one who got up this early just to wash some rocks in a river with me.”

Percy squinted.

“Point taken,” he admitted. “How do we consecrate these bad boys?”

Theodore flattened out the ripped t-shirt into its somewhat rectangular flat form. He lifted the edges and jiggled the ends to let the ores tumble towards the middle of the fabric.

“Consecration washes away the impurities of your metal, so that magic can be imbibed into whatever you’re creating. Sort of like how wires are made of pure copper so that electricity can be conducted,” Theodore explained. “Normally, we’d do this in the Jupiter Optimus Maximus, but this isn’t Imperial Gold.”

He glanced up at Percy.

“Tiberian Platinum has a nice ring to it though, don’t you think?”

Percy meant to respond, but he was too entranced by what was happening in front of him. Theodore gently submerged the fabric in the river, bathing the hunks of platinum in the Little Tiber. The water wiped away the platinum’s imperfections and grime, becoming mirror-like. They caught the light and refracted it in unexpected ways, making rainbows that would double back on themselves under the water’s surface. Percy looked at Theodore, and he noticed that Theodore had been looking at him.

Theodore pulled the fabric back out. The platinum, now purified, faded back to a duller — but still shiny — reflective grey, now that the Little Tiber’s magic ran its course. Percy stood up and grabbed the other sack by the knot, squatted and lifted—  
“Percy, what are you—”

—then cannonballed himself into the river.

Percy opened his eyes. He was not taking any chances, given the last time he was down here, but the Tiber’s magic did not burn him anymore. The pain had shed with his second skin. He breathed through his nose. It felt like he was breathing on land, the way his nostrils filled and collapsed around the water. His bottom settled into the silt. Sunlight flickered through in billowing sheets of bronzed beams. The river was clean.

He looked up, he could see Theodore on the bank waving his arms like a madman. _Theodore always liked things done his way, didn’t he?_

Percy reached his hand towards the surface, clenched his fist, and pulled — then Theodore came crashing into the surf. He drifted down towards Percy, struggling towards the surface against the force of Percy’s hydrokinesis. For all of Theodore’s strength, Percy could tell he was not much of a swimmer. Theodore plopped down across from him. The guy was puffing his cheeks with air, clenching his eyes shut tight. His short hair bobbed off his scalp like a bed of seagrass. 

Percy reached out with his foot and touched Theodore’s calf. Percy could feel his thin pocket of air spreading and enveloping his new friend. Theodore must have sensed it too, because he inhaled and opened his eyes. His eyes, Percy noticed, were wary of him. Percy uncinched the t-shirt bag he held in his lap.

The cotton fell to the wayside and the platinum ore glowed like dragon scales. Beams of unadulterated color — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet — escaped in their purest forms as the magic of centuries of Roman power cleansed the ore and made it susceptible to a new purpose and a new beauty. Percy raised one in his fist and met Theodore’s gaze across his palm, before the mirrorball blinded them.

* * *

Percy crawled onto dry land, sack of sanctified platinum in his fist, hysterically laughing. He heard someone coughing and spluttering to his left. His vision was white.

“Theodore,” he gasped between laughs. “Theodore.”

Theodore was cackling like a hyena. His laughter suited him like music, like sticks banging on steel drums.

“Percy,” he snorted. “I can’t see.”

Percy rolled onto his back and stared at the sky. Well, the “sky” was a blinding white light percolating all the way to the edges of his peripheral vision.

“Why did you do that?” Theodore said. “What _was_ that?”

“Because I thought it would be—” Percy had tears welling at the corners of his eyes. “I thought it would be cool.”

Their sides split into fits like they were on laughing gas. 

“Percy, it— it was really cool,” Theodore gasped through laughter, then shouted at the top of his lungs. “It was so cool!”

“I feel like I’m falling upwards. And when I land, I’ll be in Elysium,” Percy stated dreamily at the stratosphere.

“I feel like I looked at Venus in her true form,” Theodore said.

“Well I feel like someone launched me out of a cannon, straight into the sun...but the sun, instead of incinerating my atoms and severing my soul from existence, gave me a giant hug.”

Their hysteria died down after a little while, leaving a pleasant static around his eyes and down his neck. Color started to creep back into Percy’s vision. Soon, he was admiring the clouds. His trip was interrupted by the clearing of a throat. Theodore flashed a dopey grin at the person behind them.

“Oh hey, Octavian,” Theodore said. Percy craned his head, bending his neck at an uncomfortable angle to see Octavian scowling above him.

“I need to speak with you,” Octavian said, taking a glance at Percy. Octavian looked beyond perturbed. “Centurion business.”

“I’m doing _homework_ ,” Theodore slurred. 

“Go away, Officer. We’re tanning,” Percy said, fully clothed. Octavian looked between them like they were the last two patrons at the bar. Theodore, probably his closest ally, was practically drunk off of sunshine.

“Bathhouse. Twenty minutes,” Octavian said, then left. Theodore rolled his eyes and choked up river water.

* * *

“You,” Percy said, pointing between Frank and Hazel. “You two are dating?”

They sat alone at a table in the mess hall for lunch. Frank had his arm around Hazel’s shoulder as she chewed on a salad. They nodded.

“Huh,” Percy shrugged. “What are the odds?”

He picked up his mug of coffee, which automatically refilled to the brim with blue, steaming liquid. Yes, the coffee was blue. Percy enjoyed that for some reason.

“What _is_ that? Hot chocolate?” Frank asked.

“Coffee. I was up early,” Percy replied. “Hazel, is your brother joining us? What’s his name? Nico?”

Hazel sat forward.

“He comes and goes. He’s more of a free spirit.”

“Wait, what?” Percy exclaimed. “People can leave this place?”

“I mean, you _can_ ,” Hazel said. “But you really shouldn’t. The world’s rough out there for a demigod, outside of the camp’s protections. Usually Reyna would make a big deal about it, but honestly I think he scares her.”

“Reyna?” Percy asked. “ _Reyna_ is scared of him?”

“She’s scared of you,” Frank noted.

“And attracted to you,” Hazel added.

“What?”

Percy was incredulous. Hazel hid her face in her hands.

“Oh my gods. Boys.” 

Gears whirred in Percy’s head. Sure, Reyna was beautiful, he took a mental note of that when they first met, and the second time they met, and the third. But their trip to the bathhouse was more literally than figuratively steamy. She wanted him to replace her absent partner, who navigated New Rome politics with her same style of leadership and verve. Did Percy really miss that she was looking for something more? Did the whole legion know something he did not?

“I guess—” Percy said. “I guess I never really thought about it.”

* * *

Percy’s fist made a hollow echo on the door to Theodore’s workshop. Theodore, wearing heavy black gloves, turned to greet his visitor from the fireplace. 

“Hey,” Theodore said, then turned away. There was a palpable awkwardness hanging there, residual effects of sharing an addled brain earlier that day. 

“Did you want to start work?” Percy asked, rocking on his heels. Theodore pointed at the fireplace. Its flames licked an iron blast furnace, which glowed an infernal orange at its base.

“I have to smelt the platinum. It’s going to take a while.”

“Oh,” Percy said, disappointed. The son of Vulcan loudly rummaged through a drawer. “Did Octavian chew you out?”

“Meh,” Theodore grimaced.

“Is he still trying to run for praetor?”

“Very soon,” Theodore nodded.

“Are you supporting him?” Percy asked, a bit harshly.

“Why not?” Theodore shrugged.

“Because he’s awful.”

“There’s been a single praetor for nearly a month. The legion needs two. Reyna can’t keep doing it by herself. Rome has a history of tyranny, you know that,” he said. “Octavian has been a capable centurion for the First. He’s been here longer than me. He’ll balance her out.”

Percy fumed.

“You’re not happy with that answer,” Theodore guessed.

“I just don’t like him. Shouldn’t people like their leaders?”

“Why should I care if I like the guy? Or girl,” Theodore added. “If they’re doing a good job, then I don’t need to worry about it.”

He paused, pondering him.

“You know, Percy, I don’t see a Roman bone in your body. It’s like you break every rule someone has the audacity to put in your way. Like today: _no swimming in the Tiber. Recreation only permitted at the lake_.”

“To be fair, I didn’t know that was a rule. Second, you also went swimming.”

“Against my will,” Theodore noted. “Octavian threatened to report me to Reyna, by the way, for that and whatever that platinum did to us. I was forced to explain that the son of Neptune dragged me in.”

“Why would you throw me under the bus like that?” Percy scoffed.

“Because it’s the truth,” Theodore said plainly.

“Aren’t friends supposed to have each other’s backs?”

Theodore blinked, startled.

“Are you under the impression that we are more than acquaintances?”

The fire started to die down. Theodore grabbed a stray log from a grate and tossed it into the blaze. Percy bit his lip. He didn’t know how to answer that question. He had thought, perhaps against his better judgment, that Theodore would want to be his friend if he chiseled away hard enough at the surly front he put up.

“Do you even have friends?” Percy asked.

“What kind of question is that?” Theodore scoffed, yet also seemed to search for an answer. “Hazel’s my friend.”

“Really? Because she seems to be an acquaintance that you make swords for in exchange for access to her magnetism. So you can spend all day in here by yourself.”

Theodore’s tan blotched with red. He sucked on his teeth.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he grumbled. Theodore pointedly inspected the melting platinum and Percy, with nothing else to say, went to catch an early bedtime in the Fifth Cohort barracks.


	8. Chapter 8

Percy’s muscles, specifically his quads and shoulders, burned like a medic was slicing him with a cauterizing knife.

For someone with a divine connection to water, it did not make the liquid any lighter. Theodore had tasked him with lugging two industrial barrel-fulls to the forge. Yes, he had tried levitating it, but he could not hold it for very long. He strained to keep it aloft. Maybe he was just tired, or his mind was still foggy from his river-induced euphoria. Either way, this resulted in Percy lugging gallons of the Tiber to Theodore’s workshop, using a bit of Olympian power to keep his inertia. _A gallon of water_ , Percy pulled from his encyclopedic knowledge of water he apparently had, _weighs 8.34 pounds_. Halfway there with the second barrel, Percy collapsed to the dirt and panted like a dog. He read the stenciled lettering on its base: 55 gallons. Percy cursed. Theodore was making him drag over four hundred pounds, all by himself. Maybe a son of the sea god _was_ the person for this job.

Upon reaching Theodore’s workshop with some overdramatic moaning and groaning, he fell to the floor and lost himself in the ceiling. His slick skin stuck to the concrete floor.

“Should I imbibe my trident with my sweat?” Percy wheezed. “Or my tears?”

“Your blood, actually,” Theodore said, brandishing a pointed screwdriver.

“Wha—?”

Before Percy could react, Theodore grabbed his limp wrist and punctured the end of his index finger, collecting a droplet of blood on the tip. He carefully walked it over to the open furnace and tapped the screwdriver on the lip. From his position, Percy could hear the droplet plop and sizzle in the molten platinum. 

“What was that for?” Percy complained, nursing his hand.

“The trident needs to know you’re its owner,” Theodore explained. “So that it will always return to you.”

Percy gave him an exhausted thumbs-up. Theodore was in brighter spirits today, though Percy still felt like there was a score to settle. That Theodore was punishing him for their argument yesterday, which would explain the exorbitant amount of water he retrieved.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Percy told him.

“How many times have I told you to stop apologizing?”

“Will you just let me for once? Please?” Percy saw Theodore’s face scrunch up. “I shouldn’t expect you to defend my actions that get you in trouble. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” 

Percy raised his eyebrows.

“That was easier than expected.”

“Well, I only needed ten gallons of water,” Theodore said, with more than a hint of cheek. “You do the math.”

Percy groaned and rolled onto his stomach.

“Hey, chin up,” Theodore said, sliding his boot under Percy’s chin and forcing him to meet his gaze. “We’re even now.”

“I would argue the punishment was worse than the crime.”

Theodore squatted down next to one of the barrels and wrapped his arms around the circumference.

“Oh no, your stunt at the War Games also demanded vengeance.”

“Okay fine—” Percy shouted as Theodore heaved and lifted the barrel. “ _Are you superhuman?_ ” 

“Percy,” Theodore said flatly. “We all are.”

He set the barrel down on a workbench.

“You sure you’re not a son of Jupiter with those thunder thighs?”

Theodore choked on a laugh. He stepped towards the furnace and his cheeks pinked with heat.

“So you can draw, you can deadlift...what else are you hiding from me?” Percy asked. Theodore bit his lip.

“If we get started, you’ll find out.”

* * *

Percy was outfitted in a heavy apron and gloves to match Theodore’s. He was handed one of those galvanized steel helmets engineers use to weld, which he strapped onto his head. Percy could barely see out of it, but he could make out Theodore making last minute adjustments to the blueprints he had pinned to the drawing board. 

“Why aren’t you wearing one?” Percy shouted, his voice muffled and tinny. Theodore turned and went up to the furnace in the hearth, which glowed red as hellfire. The liquid platinum bubbled in its cauldron.

“I just want you to be careful! Now,” Theodore yelled back, gesturing to a bucket of water he had set out next to Percy. “When I say so, you’re going to douse the trident in water to cool it down!”

Percy nodded in understanding, which painfully rammed the bottom lip of the welding mask into his collarbone. Theodore held his hand out towards the fireplace. He glowered, forehead wrinkling with intense focus. Percy looked to the furnace. Out of the top slithered a rope of boiling platinum, bobbing into the air in front of Theodore’s fingers. Theodore beckoned with his hands and the platinum kept oozing out like a strand of taffy. He severed it at a certain length, then began to mold the metal, miming invisible pottery.

“How are you doing that?” Percy breathed. Theodore did not break his concentration.

“I can control molten substances. Metal is the most natural. Lava’s a close second, if it’s available,” Theodore replied. The molten platinum was taking shape, forming the shaft of the trident. Percy watched Theodore’s fingers, subtly and precisely tapping or sliding or rotating in their own little dance like the tentacles of a sea anemone. The metal responded, creating the delicate detailing that was present in the picture Theodore had drawn. The beauty his parents cherished — what Theodore cherished — intimately channeled itself through his fingertips. Percy thought if he could get close enough, he would be able to see Theodore’s fingerprints all over a platinum weapon he never even physically touched.

“Can you do chocolate fountains?” Percy asked.

“Huh?”

“Like melted chocolate—”

“Water! Now!”

Percy, panicked and without hesitation, hurled water onto the metal. It clattered to the floor, metallic pangs reverberating around the room, as the metal cooled to its original silvery sheen. Theodore tried not to smile.

“Don’t ask me stupid questions while I’m working!”

“They may be stupid, but don’t say they’re not important,” Percy said, pointing an intellectual finger. Theodore shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“No, I have not tried to control melted chocolate.”

“What about water? We could totally have the same powers.”

“Water?” Theodore scoffed.

“Isn’t water just _molten_ ice?” Percy asked, looking at him like he just made a paradigm-shifting scientific breakthrough.

“Shut up, Percy.”

“Nacho cheese? Fondue?” he asked excitedly.

“Shut up, Percy,” he repeated, firmer this time.

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Percy crooned. “ _Molten substances_ is a broad category. I don’t think you’re realizing your full potential here.”

Percy ripped off his welding mask.

“Promise me. At dinner, we try it out on the buffet table.”

Theodore was taken aback.

“We’re getting meals together now, are we?”

“ _Why_ ,” Percy groaned and stomped his foot, “do you keep pretending that we’re not friends?”

Theodore scowled and scratched the back of his head. The corner of his mouth pulled into a one-sided grin.

“Fine. I promise,” he said, pretending not to be happy about it. “Now can we get back to work?”

* * *

As Theodore could not control the shaft of the trident after it solidified, they had to wheel out a vice that could hold the completed end in place. Percy watched Theodore work for hours, lengthening the shaft inch by inch with molten platinum, as Percy was directed to cool the metal with water every few minutes. Theodore did not like it when Percy talked while he was crafting, so he stood there in silence, admiring the tender ministrations the son of Vulcan would do with his fingers. It mesmerized him, how Theodore’s thick fingers could probably tie a knot around the leg of a housefly. 

He thought of Theodore’s mother, the artist. Theodore never explicitly said what happened to her, but Percy noticed he talked about her in the past tense. Whether she was dead, or just not in his life anymore, he did not know. Percy was suddenly interested in meeting her, or perhaps to just see a picture. He imagined Theodore as a culmination of his parents’ strengths: Vulcan’s literal strength and brawn, and his mother’s touch for complex construction. Both of their creativity. 

“Cool,” Theodore exhaled. Percy coated the final addition with water and the metal sizzled. Steam rose off of the end of the shaft. The handle was complete — a cylinder-like rod whose circumference was more hexagonal than circular. The non- _dent_ end was an intricately-designed knob, sort of like the petals of a rose. Theodore dropped to the floor and propped himself up on his elbows, steadying his breathing. 

“It takes a lot out of me,” he said. “Working that long.”

Percy sat down across from him. He realized he had been standing for hours as well.

“How do you do this without a son of Neptune here?”

“Lots of dipping,” Theodore told him. He waved at a pair of heavy-duty gloves hanging from a hook. “You’ll get more to do when we get to the pointy end. It’s shorter but a lot more detail work.”

Percy found himself staring at Theodore’s forearm: The SPQR tattoo and its two lines.

“How did you get to camp?” Percy asked. Theodore shifted his arm, covering his tattoo against his side. Percy could not tell if it was intentional. He looked at Percy warily.

“The wolves, like everyone else.”

“No, like,” Percy began. “I woke up with the wolves. With no memory. How is it supposed to happen?”

Theodore absently picked dirt out of his thumbnail.

“They came to my house.”

“How did they know where to find you?”

Theodore shrugged. A sadness lingered in his eyes.

“Demigod scent,” he said. “I’ve been told it gets stronger the older you get. And when you first begin to realize who you really are, like when you channel power for the first time. Which would make sense, uh...for me.”

Percy could see the calcification of Theodore’s shell happening right before his eyes. Percy did not want to pry, but he knew in his heart that if he did not at least attempt a conversation, his friend would be impossible to ever open up again.

“What happened that day?” Percy asked, looking at the ground. “When the wolves came.”

Theodore analyzed him, low firelight bouncing off his proud jaw. Percy guessed he had never talked about this before, letting it crystallize into a prison in his chest. Theodore sighed.

“My mom immigrated to San Francisco from the Philippines a few years before I was born because, and I quote, ‘Americans have so much trash,’” Theodore chuckled. “You know already she was big into the art scene, I was born, yada yada.”

He looked away, choosing instead to fix his gaze on the embers flickering in the ash of the hearth.

“My dad left, as gods do,” he paused. “And we...lived on our own for over a decade. At some point, when I was twelve or thirteen, my dad came back. And they fell in love again.”

Theodore stuck his tongue in his cheek.

“Vulcan wanted my mom to move away from San Francisco, said there was a big war coming, and he didn’t want us to get hurt. He wanted her to move to Washington, away from the action. He liked to set up shop underneath volcanoes, a great place for a godly forge. He did it with Mount Etna, in Sicily, back in the day. The plan was he could visit her often, if she lived up there in the mountains...so we did.”

Theodore took a deep breath.

“I lived there up until two years ago and...” Theodore looked back at Percy, pain etched into his features. “Long story short, it wasn’t safe for us there either. So the wolves picked me up.”

A dark wave of energy pulsed down the base of Percy’s skull and an uncomfortably warm feeling spread through his limbs. Percy knew Theodore was holding back information, but he knew better than to test his boundaries. He wished he had something to divulge to Theodore, so that this exchange did not feel so one-sided, and he told him that.

“Does it bother you?” Theodore asked. “Not having any memories?”

“I— I don’t know,” Percy said. “It’s like, I don’t feel a yearning for another life, when the past couple weeks has been all I have ever known. How do I ache for something else when I don’t even know what that something else is? I’m comparing Camp Jupiter with the void.”

He rubbed his forehead with the base of his palm.

“Sometimes, I get these...feelings. In my brain. When I feel like I should remember something. I can tell exactly where the synapses are fried, charred to a crisp. I had one just now, when you told your story.”

Theodore frowned.

“And I can’t even sort out what that feeling _means_ , you know? Was I a part of the memory you were describing? Or did something similar happen to me and my brain is trying to empathize?” Percy wondered aloud. “Like where’s _my_ mom? Is she worried about me?”

He choked out the last few words. Percy suddenly felt himself becoming overwhelmed with emotion. He had been so go-with-the-flow for so long, he had not even stopped to process what he was going through, and now the tsunami was crashing down on him. His bottom lip trembled. He bit down hard to stop his fraying emotional state from completely unraveling. Theodore noticed.

“What— What is happening?” Theodore monotoned fearfully. “I don’t like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Percy mumbled through a couple stray tears. “It’s stupid. Don’t worry about it.”

Theodore rubbed his teeth together, uncomfortable and completely inept when it came to displays of emotional vulnerability. Percy wasn’t sure what he wanted or expected. Condolences? Reassurance? He knew for a fact he wasn’t going to receive that from Theodore, an “acquaintance.” Embarrassed, he got up to leave. Theodore sprang to his knees and shuffled over to him.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,” Theodore whispered. “It’s okay.”

He pulled Percy down into a stiff hug that felt more like a strangulation than an embrace, trapping him listlessly against his chest. Percy put his chin on his shoulder. Theodore smelled like smoke.

“I’m sorry,” Percy mumbled. “Wasn’t really expecting that.”

“Stop apologizing, you Roman.”

Percy laughed and wiped his watery eyes. Theodore squeezed the rest of the waterworks out of him as if he were a sopping sponge, then pulled away.

“Come on,” Theodore told him, giving in. “I’ll try to detonate the chocolate fountain.”


	9. Chapter 9

Percy listened, eyes shut tight, as warm honey drizzled over his forehead and cheeks.

Cloud nymphs swirled around him, combing his unruly hair, trimming his fingernails and cuticles, and exfoliating his skin. The incessant drip of water off stalactites was surprisingly relaxing, the way it echoed off the cave walls. Reyna, in the adjacent chair, had taken him to the underground spa in the bowels of the bathhouse for some sorely-needed stress relief, as Octavian had announced his intention to run for the open praetor seat — an election he was virtually guaranteed to win, given he was running unopposed. 

“You ever been to a spa, Percy?” Reyna asked him. Percy’s scalp tingled with pins and needles when a cloud nymph ran her hands through his hair. Reyna raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t recall,” Percy replied.

“Oh, right. Too soon?” She held up her fingernails to the light. “I used to work at a spa, believe it or not.”

“Really?” he asked. “That doesn’t seem like you.”

Reyna rolled her eyes.

“Please, everyone says that. I love the spa, reminds me of better days. They act like I can’t look good and kick ass at the same time,” she said as she took a pointed look at Percy. “Of course, no one ever says that about the boys, but I respect a guy who’s not afraid to get pampered.”

Percy and Reyna shared a glance. She appreciated him. Percy quickly examined his fingernails and chuckled.

“I should get Theodore down here. I think he has two years of soot caked under here,” he said as he held up his thumbnail.

“Ha, good luck with that one,” Reyna laughed. “That boy’s stiff as a board.”

Percy felt the sudden urge to defend him.

“Hey, he’s not that bad. We’re friends now,” Percy said. “I think.”

Reyna looked at him strangely.

“What?” Percy asked, concerned.

“It’s nothing, I—” She pondered her next words. “You are just the last person I would expect Theodore to get along with.”

“Oh, we don’t get along,” Percy laughed. “But we’re totally friends.”

Percy readjusted himself in his lounge chair.

“I’m sure,” Reyna said, wringing out tension in her neck. “You know he made my dogs, Aurum and Argentum? I told him I wanted some truth-smelling, metal canine companions and I swear to the gods I’ve never seen him more excited in my life. We spent _weeks_ on them.”

Something ugly and serpentine curled up in Percy’s stomach. A green-eyed dragon ready to blow fire.

“He was back to his placid self after he finished though,” she said plaintively. “He has the tendency to worship the work he does over the people he’s with. A lot of Vulcan children are like that.”

Percy’s gut uneasily calmed down. The monster dissolved in acid.

“Is that why you trust him so much?” Percy began. “Despite him working so closely with Octavian?”

Reyna hardened at the intrusion of Octavian into her safe space.

“Percy, to me, Theodore’s not a complicated guy. Rome is his home, literally, and he will serve it to his dying breath. He has no mortal family. He’s kind of like Jason, in that way,” she said. “From what I’ve seen from him, his judgments have always followed a compass that upholds this legion. He has been an outstanding centurion and senator. The fact that both myself and Octavian would trust him with our lives is proof of that.” 

A lightbulb went off in Percy’s head.

“Then why don’t you ask him to run for praetor?”

“Do you really think I hadn’t thought of that?” Reyna smirked. “A praetor needs direction. An itch for change. To move forward. I see that in you, not him. Admittedly, that may be because you have no memory and there is no back to look back to, but from your display at the War Games, it’s obvious you have a certain disrespect for authority. At least, the current authority.”

Percy’s recollection of the centurions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cohorts made his blood boil. Maybe she _was_ right, he _should_ take this opportunity for himself. Reyna played with the end of her towel.

“No, he’s good where he is,” she smiled. “He is stubbornly content where he is.”

Percy was settled.

“How do I become praetor before the election?” Percy asked, finding a steely resolve. Reyna grinned.

“You’re going to need a quest.”

* * *

Theodore, it turned out, could in fact blow up a chocolate fountain with his mind. Who knew? 

The pair spent their entire days together at this point. At first, it was coincidental. Percy would wake up to go on a run then swim at the bathhouse and, lo and behold, would cross paths with Theodore as he took his morning ice bath in the _frigidarium_. This happened three consecutive times, at which point Percy suggested that Theodore join him on his run, then they could head to the bathhouse together. Afterwards, they realized they were both heading off to breakfast. And so it became run-swim-breakfast. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge-lunch. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge-lunch-forge. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge-lunch-forge-dinner.

On nights of the War Games, they got a kick out of playing on opposite teams. Percy enjoyed how much his unpredictable nature and tendency to disobey whatever his cohort’s senior officers told him to do infuriated Theodore. Theodore devised entire strategies involving the First and Second Cohorts solely to make Percy’s life harder, no matter how much it affected the outcome of the Games. They often managed to find each other on the battlefield anyway and duke it out, ignoring the ongoing warfare. Their scorecard was kept by bruises, and was always even. The valley had no rainfall since Percy’s first War Games, so no unfair advantages, just hammer versus whichever weapon Percy chose from the armory that day. They kept mental notes of each other’s injuries, which evolved into a game of who could jab each other’s boo-boos in a round of ninja. Due to Theodore’s slightly longer reach, this usually ended in Percy on the ground laughing, cursing, and howling in pain, after his best friend stabbed two fingers into a sensitive spot.

The trident was coming along nicely. The teeth took significantly longer than Percy anticipated. Theodore was a perfectionist and he was adamant about getting curvature and angles exactly correct. Percy also had to learn how to control the water with almost as minute precision as Theodore did the molten platinum. Percy learned through repeatedly misshaping the first tooth that Theodore closes off when he gets frustrated and has entire mumbling conversations with himself. He didn’t like when Theodore got like this, so Percy worked on his fine motor control, and soon they were almost done with the second. They worked together seamlessly.

Percy watched as Theodore put the finishing touches on the second tooth, shaping the end into a deadly point. Theodore sticks the tip of his tongue through his teeth when he concentrates, Percy noticed.

“Water,” Theodore commanded. Percy traced his finger from the water bucket, pulling a single drop of water into the air. He moved it to wear the platinum glowed and enclosed the end in the water. The metal cooled and solidified into the rest of the weapon.

“Perfect,” Percy smiled.

Theodore inspected the end. He shook his head.

“It’s misshapen.”

Percy took a closer look. It looked similar in construction to the first tooth.

“It looks fine to me,” he said.

“It’s misshapen. It needs to be fixed,” Theodore replied, looking him dead in the eye, and that was the end of that matter. Theodore melted the end of the tooth down and the two of them spent another two hours repairing it. At the time of its second completion, Theodore simply looked at it and dunked the tooth back into the furnace of molten platinum.

“Wha—” Percy protested, out of breath. Theodore was right, spending so much time moving precise amounts of water to precise locations drained him more than he thought. Percy plopped to the ground.

“It needs to be flawless,” Theodore said, his back to him.

“You don’t have to try so hard! I thought the first two looked great.”

“You don’t make weapons all day,” he said. “They weren’t good enough.”

Percy could feel the cold shoulder from there. Theodore had not been this flustered or distant in weeks. 

“Is it me? I think it’s me,” Percy said. If there was one thing Percy could not stand, it was being the weakest link. Theodore turned to him and he softened.

“No,” he sighed. “It’s not you.”

“Then what’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“Can we just get back to work please?” he snapped. The words rolled off of Theodore’s tongue like punches. Percy blinked.

“I think we should just call it a day...” Percy said, crawling up onto his feet.

“No, Percy, don’t go,” Theodore exhaled, his anger deflating as Percy walked to the door.

“No, it’s okay,” Percy reassured him. “We all have rough days. Whatever’s going on, I’d be happy to talk about it. Otherwise, I’ll...see you in the morning. Get a good night’s sleep.”

Percy rocked on the balls of his feet, then rounded the corner.

“Percy, I’m sorry.”

He froze.

“What was that?” Percy asked. He re-entered the room to see Theodore, lips sealed, shoulders drawn in.

“That sounded like an apology,” Percy said. Theodore glared at him. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Could you repeat that?”

“Shut up, Percy,” Theodore grumbled, kicking dust.

“Did the sun just freeze over?”

“Shut up, Percy.”

“Aww, he’s back.”

“So can we get back to work?” Theodore asked, straightening his spine. Percy shrugged.

“Nah, I’m still leaving. You need to sleep off...” Percy's smile faded, gesticulating at Theodore. “Whatever this is.”

He turned on his heel and disappeared down the dark hallway.

* * *

Hours after curfew, in the dead of night, the engine that was Percy’s body never quieted to less than an idle purr. Tossing and turning in his bunk, he first pleaded with the god of sleep for mercy, then, after unsuccessfully contacting Somnus, telepathically tried to get Frank’s slumbering form to wake up and hit him over the head with a shovel. His fingers had a mind of their own, tapping and clenching and gripping the sheets. The worst part was that he wasn’t even tired. His eyelids didn’t droop. His heartbeat impatiently tapped its toes against his ribs like it was waiting in line at the DMV. And by the gods...he had to use the bathroom. His body was acting like it was the middle of the afternoon and he should be doing anything other than laying in bed.

What was he supposed to do? Inflict watching-paint-dry level torture on himself by cycling through supine positions until sunrise? He glanced around at the Fifth Cohort legionnaires, all in some peaceful state of rest (he liked them better this way). Dakota let out a porcine snore, then rolled onto his stomach. The senior officer, along with Gwen, slept on either side of the barrack door, for good reason. Curfew _was_ strict… but it couldn’t hurt to take a walk, right? Get some fresh air? 

Percy, with all the time in the world, slithered into a pair of jeans centimeter by centimeter. With a final tug, he yanked the waistline past his butt. He snatched a camp t-shirt from the floor and made a barefooted attempt at pointe technique in his silent ballet across the room. Without a creak, without a stir, soon his toes were blessing the moon-cooled grass.

Camp Jupiter was foreign to him in the dark. He had never seen it so still, activity ground to a halt. No orders being shouted. No metal clashing on metal. No bustle of Roman civilization. For a moment, Percy pretended he was at a regular old summer camp, that he wasn’t a product of Olympian blood. There was something so darkly funny about it all, being conscripted into an adolescent army to fight battles more powerful beings than him did not want to fight. If he could tear this place to the ground and build it from scratch, he would at least make it more fun. He’s here for a good time, not a long time.

Percy found himself meandering the length of the Little Tiber, letting the invisible burbling of the river’s flow guide him down its banks with the little light he had to see. Here, his breathing evened out, his blood pressure normalized. The proximity of the water calmed him. He kind of wanted to fall asleep right then and there, curl up in the silt and let the ripples tuck him in, but he knew the Roman penal system by then. The son of Neptune plopped himself onto the sand and sat criss-cross facing the current. His index finger dipped under the surface, tracing spirals in the downstream. 

He knew, deep down, that he was the reason Theodore was brimming with frustration that day. Percy had elevated himself to friend status (or so he thought), which is perhaps why Theodore wouldn’t say it to his face, but he knew. Percy was trying — really, _really_ trying — but he did not have the technical skill Theodore had. He did not have the concentration, the capacity for art, perception of three-dimensional models. Most damning of all, he did not have the focus. His brain and body rarely sat still as it was. Exhibit A: the present.

So Percy found resolve. He straightened his back, pulled his shoulders taut, rested his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes. Deep breath in through the nose, controlled exhale through the mouth. _Focus..._

_Focus..._

_Focus..._

_Focus..._

The Tiber in front of him revealed itself in his mind’s eye, became tangible — a faint blue aura just in front of him, crawling across the insides of his eyelids. He could feel the precise contours of its flow in a synesthetic sense — where it bumped rocks and swirled in eddies, where it caressed scales of the fish, where it leaked through the riverbed into the bedrock below. Percy cleaved current off the top and lifted it from the river. The blue phosphorescence molded to his thoughts. He held back a smile.

First, he attempted a sphere. It came out nearly perfectly round. He manifested two hands into his brainscape. He cupped the ball of water and squeezed, like molding Play-Doh. It was more oblong than the first. Percy bit his lip. His palms adjusted and rolled the water between them. He contoured it like pottery, envisioning how Theodore sculpts his weaponry. Still egg-like. He growled in frustration.

His connection with the water began to shake, the light bleeding out of his periphery like aurora borealis. Percy frantically tried to hold his existence on this plane, but he was practically scooping water out of a sinking ship. _Focus_ , he repeated to himself. _Focus. Focus on the flow. The flow of the water. Yes. I can feel it. The flow of the water._ The water’s aura began to sharpen, pooling back into the frame. He could see the Tiber, see the sphere taking hold. 

_The flow of the water. Flow of the water._ Sweat dribbled down his forehead. The sphere was taking hold. _Flow of the water. Yes, it’s working. I can do it. I can do it. I can see it. The flow of the water._ He could sense it everywhere — the grass blades, the air. The water in his own body…it was responding to him. A peculiar feeling nested below his navel. A pressure building up, needing release. Power flooded his veins. _The flow of the water. The flow of the water. The flow of the water. The flow of the—_

Percy gasped, breathing heavily, and the entire illusion fell apart. His eyes shot open. Blush crept up his neck and reached for his cheeks. A wet sensation was pooling down the inside of his thigh, seeping through his jeans at an alarming rate — and it wasn’t the Little Tiberian sphere he had been molding. He jumped to his feet, absolutely mortified. He tried to stop, but the seal, so to speak, was broken.

“Oh my gods, oh, you’ve got to be kidding—” Percy hyperventilated, forcefully pressing his bladder through his abdomen as if that would get it under control. “ _Wrong_ flow of water. _Wrong_ flow of water. Wrong flow. Wrong flow. Oh, oh my gods.”

He let out a slew of curses and duck-walked towards the Tiber. Before stepping in, he hesitated. There was a rule about swimming in the Tiber. He had no reason to believe there wouldn’t be a rule about washing off urine, but he also didn’t want to be the reason one was created, you know? It also didn’t feel right to defile the river like that. _The bathhouse. Yes, the bathhouse. I can do it there._

“That is the _last_ time I do that. Ugh, I’m so _stupid_...Theodore better reimburse me for this. _Urgh_ ,” Percy complained through his teeth the entire speed-waddle down the _via praetoria_ into the camp. “He still owes me a shirt.”

He tore his t-shirt over his head and tied it around his waist to cover up the stain as he peeled out onto the _via principalis_ , homing in on the bathhouse. His bare feet tread uncomfortably over the gravel, stones digging into his soles. He did not even want to fathom what would happen if his superiors found him out of bed, like this. 

With a final shred of hope, Percy hobbled up the few marble stairs and heaved against the heavy bathhouse doors. They didn’t budge. Locked for the night. Percy balled his fists, trembling with righteous anger, and drove a punch into the oak with a dull thud.

“ _Ow_ ,” Percy seethed, then nursed his fragile hand. “ _Di immortales_.” 

He then sent an ill-thought-out retaliatory kick that fired pain missiles through his toes and up his shin.

“What are you doing?”

Percy whirled around. There, in the walkway, was the person he least wanted to see: Theodore, holding a fresh, steaming cup of coffee.

“I thought I told you to go to bed,” Percy said matter-of-factly.

“You don’t seem to be following your own advice,” Theodore replied, eyeing him curiously. “Why are you out past curfew?”

“Why are _you_ out past curfew?” Percy shot back.

“I’m a centurion, I don’t _have_ a curfew. And I like to work to distract myself from the other work I’m supposed to be doing. Now may I ask why you are battering down the bathhouse doors, looking...” Theodore drolled, analyzing the queer combination of jeans and a shirt tucked into the front like an apron. “Like that?”

Percy, as always, opted for the most chaotic of his options: tell Theodore exactly what happened, and hope he thinks it was a joke because no one in their right mind would admit at _this age_ that they just had...an accident. Reverse psychology.

“I pissed myself,” Percy stated as nonchalantly as possible.

Theodore blinked. Blinked again. Then blinked a third time. He chuckled for a hot minute, then his eyebrows scrunched together. He frowned.

“You— you really pissed yourself, didn’t you?” Theodore squinted, stifling a laugh. He wagged a finger. “I know you, Percy. I know how your mind games work.”

Percy cursed.

“ _Don’t. Laugh_ ,” he warned. “It is _not funny_.”

“You did!” Theodore guffawed. “You totally did!”

“Theodore, I’m _serious_.”

Theodore’s laugh cut through the air like a sonic boom. Percy ran him down.

“ _Shut up_. Do you want the entirety of New Rome to hear you?”

Theodore lost it. Percy shoved his hand over Theodore’s mouth.

“I want _ancient_ Rome to hear me,” Theodore muffled.

“Help me, or I _swear to the gods_ ,” Percy growled. Theodore escaped his muzzle.

“ _Give_ me a minute. Phew. Oh gods, oh, this is—” Theodore wiped a tear and wheezed. “Don’t get your diaper in a twist.”

Percy slapped him across the bicep. Hard.

* * *

Back in the forge, Percy draped his jeans over his forearms like it was a funeral shroud, holding it over the furnace like a sacrifice. An extra pair of Theodore’s black cargo pants hung low on his hips. The pants’ original owner stood back, clutching an ice pack to his left arm where a pink, inflamed handprint imprinted on his skin. Percy sighed. Standing so close to the heat was searing off his eyebrows.

“I think that’s the hardest anyone’s ever slapped me,” Theodore said.

Percy was, uncharacteristically, silent for a while.

“Should I just burn them?” Percy asked. “I’m tired of waiting for the stain to evaporate.”

“Burn them,” Theodore replied. “They’re piss pants.”

Percy unceremoniously dropped the jeans into the fire. The denim immediately caught and smoked. He swatted the air and coughed. Theodore pulled him backwards by the elbow. He glanced at Percy with concern. The lack of sleep, the situation — it seemed to age Percy by a few years. The bags under his eyes weighed his cheeks down like melted wax. Besides the cry that lasted him all but a few minutes the other day, he had never seen Percy this...blue. It jarred him — Percy losing his sense of humor. 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed about it,” Theodore reassured him. “I’m the only one who knows. I won’t tell anyone.”

“I know,” Percy exhaled. He cringed. “But it’s still really embarrassing.”

“Would it be rude of me to ask what happened?”

“I’m flattered you don’t think I just wet the bed like a child and that there must be some crazy story to go along with this.”

“Percy, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you’re the physical manifestation of Murphy’s Law. It wouldn’t be Percy-worthy if you had just been using a urinal in a dream.”

Percy crossed his arms across his chest.

“I knew you were frustrated with me about messing up the trident—”

“I wasn’t frustrated with y—”

Percy held up his hand.

“Stop. I know you were, so just cut it, okay?” Percy said. Theodore licked his lips and backed down. “I went down to the river to practice and I felt this...I don’t know...connection? With water that I’d never felt before. Like it was all mine, if I wanted it. _All_ of it...then long story short I accidentally gave myself incontinence.”

Theodore pulled his ice pack off and gently placed it on a workbench. He looked Percy in the eyes.

“I wasn’t frustrated with you,” he repeated.

Percy ran a hand through his hair and kicked at the floor. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Can you just, um, I don’t know, work on something? I don’t really wanna talk about it anymore.”

Theodore nodded his head.

“Yeah. Yeah, no problem.”

Theodore walked to his filing cabinet and fumbled around the array of cylindrical tubes arranged like arrows in a quiver. He pursed his lips, fingering indecisively between two adjacent tubes. Percy took a seat on a metal stool next to the drawing board, swiveling idly to and fro. Extracting a blueprint from his chosen tube, Theodore pinned the paper to the drawing board. It detailed the stirrups of a saddle.

Then, Theodore slid a blank blueprint across the table in Percy’s direction. He clattered a couple graphite pencils onto the hardwood. Percy looked up at him.

“Here,” Theodore grinned. “Practice your art. Gods know you need it.”

So, tongues between their teeth, the son of Vulcan got to work on putting the finishing touches on an iron stirrup and Percy drew cottony clouds across the pale blue of the parchment. A half hour passed in comfortable silence.

“What do you think of these?” Theodore turned and asked Percy, showing off the rectangular rings in his fists.

But the son of Neptune was clunked out, drooling over the blueprint, arms splayed over a horrendous rendition of a dark pegasus.


	10. Chapter 10

Perspiration hung off Percy’s eyelash like dew on a grass blade — scores of droplets poised to make Percy falter.

They had been at it for hours — Theodore pushing Percy to his limits to get the final tooth of his trident just right. It had taken them days to get the second tooth to Theodore’s standards, which really tested Percy’s patience, but he knew Theodore’s pride was tied to this project. Finishing it and melting it and finishing it and melting it. Theodore could not physically bear the thought of letting Percy run free with a shoddy weapon, especially one so intertwined with his name and reputation. So Percy bore Theodore’s frustrations and tics and neuroses, and helped the best he could, all to make sure his friend was satisfied with the final product.

Percy willed the water from his bucket towards the point of the third tooth, morphing it into a hollow cone, like a party hat. He carefully slid it over the molten platinum Theodore held in place using his own power, sharp as an arrow’s head. The platinum and water fit like lock and key, substrate and enzyme. The heat of the metal petered out, escaping in wisps of water vapor, and the platinum seamlessly merged with the rest of the trident. Percy blinked away the sweat dripping down his brow, hoping it did not break his concentration enough to mess up the tooth for the umpteenth time.

Theodore tugged the hem of his camp t-shirt out of his belt and wiped his forehead. Percy could see he was just as sweaty. He walked up to inspect the trident. Percy prayed that this would be it. _Vulcan, Neptune — whoever can hear my internal monologues — please let Theodore be satisfied._

Theodore touched the end of the new tooth and bit back a curse. He pricked his index finger. He shook it out and sucked on it. Theodore bent down, looking at the tooth from every angle. Percy held his breath. With a gleam in his eye, Theodore looked up at him.

“It’s done.”

Relief released Percy from so much inner tension, his knees almost gave out. He smiled a big, broad smile and it made Theodore light up. He gave him a high-five that lingered at the top. Theodore nearly crushed Percy’s fingers, he squeezed them so tightly, but Percy did not mind. He could not stop smiling, he was so happy. He clapped Theodore on the back.

“It was lovely working with you, Theodore,” Percy poorly imitated a proper British accent. “Positively splendid. Absolutely gorgeous craftsmanship.”

“I think she looks simply ravishing, if I do say so myself,” Theodore replied, with an even more egregious attempt at Cockney. They separated. Percy put his hands on his hips.

“Take it,” Theodore told him. “It’s yours.”

Percy held his hands under the trident’s shaft as Theodore arm-cranked the vice supporting it. The metal fell gently into his grip. His body tingled, running up his arms and coursing through his skin. His arm hair stood on end. He felt immeasurable power emanating from the weapon in his grasp. Theodore noticed his awe.

“What did you put in this?” Percy asked. Theodore shrugged.

“The Tiber. A little extra magic courtesy of some Hecate kids.”

“I—” Percy stammered. “I don’t even know what to say.”

They assessed each other. An unspoken understanding passed between them. It was bittersweet. Theodore pulled something out of his pocket. 

“Here, I uh—” Theodore said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It goes on this. So you never lose it.”

He held it up to the light. It was a silvery chain with a small clasp on either end. A studded ring loosely hung in the middle. Theodore tapped the bottom of the trident to the ring and the trident was wrenched from Percy’s hands. It had shrunk to the size of a charm, now dangling on a platinum necklace. Percy took it from him.

“This is so cool,” Percy whispered. He attempted to tie it around his neck, but his fingers were too hyperactive for the clasps. The effort must have shown on Percy’s face, because Theodore laughed.

“Let me do it,” Theodore scoffed as he walked around to Percy’s back.

Theodore had such nimble fingers, Percy was never not amazed by how he could handle the tiniest of contraptions with such delicacy. The necklace dangled over Percy’s chest, right where his sternum met his collarbone. Theodore walked back around to his front and smiled, admiring his handiwork. Percy gave him a devilish grin.

“Wanna go try it out?”

* * *

It was a clear day — not a cloud in the sky, no barrier to protect him from the dry heat. Percy had changed into royal blue swim trunks. He waved as he strolled the length of the Little Tiber, greeting Theodore (also swimwear-clad), who was propped up on a walking stick. The river’s mouth widened into the recreational swimming lake on the southern border of New Rome. A sparse group of demigods enjoyed the water.

As Percy got closer, he noticed Theodore was not using a walking stick, but the staff he had used in the first War Games they played together. Theodore rubbed the fangs of the snake head with his fingertip.

“You know I made this, right?”

“Why am I not surprised?” Percy replied. “Are we sparring today?”

Theodore grimaced.

“I want you to teach me how to fight with it.”

Percy raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t give up on the hammer! I love the hammer.”

“A good warrior is always versatile,” Theodore said. “Please?”

“I don’t know how...” Percy began. 

“Don’t give me that.”

“Okay, last time I was in a water-fueled psychotic rampage,” Percy whined.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Theodore scoffed. “You pick up a new weapon every week and wipe out half my cohort. You just couldn’t lose your muscle memory, could you?”

Percy sighed and yanked his trident charm off his necklace. It grew to full length in his hand. Its cold surface responded to the warmth of Percy’s hand, pulsating with a quiet level of energy that only the son of Neptune could evoke. The trident felt like an extension of himself, as if his arteries and veins vascularized into the weapon’s core, pumping an aqueous, salty bloodstream through the teeth to the base. He twirled it in his hand. It balanced itself as it rotated, its center of gravity shifting to suit his preferences. And by the gods, it was beautiful. The platinum was almost blinding, the way it caught the sunlight and reflected stray beams. The teeth were deadly, but Percy personally would be honored to be killed by such a weapon. Despite Percy’s joking, it really did feel like their child. A brainchild, at least.

Across from him, Theodore readied the staff and the dual blades emerged from the twin vipers’ maws. Percy smirked, then charged. Percy swung his trident overhead. Their weapons clanged together, iron on platinum. Theodore strained against Percy’s show of force, but shoved him off like he would a bench press. Percy twirled, reset himself, then jabbed, catching the staff in the teeth of his trident. He twisted and the staff clattered on the ground.

“Defend from the side,” Percy said. “Or you’re gonna get it knocked out of your hands.”

Quick as lightning, Theodore dropped to the dirt, grabbed the staff, and swung it at Percy’s feet. Percy jumped and slammed his trident’s teeth between the staff again. He lifted and twisted, then the staff spun away down the beach.

“Isn’t the definition of insanity doing something over and over again and expecting a diff—”

Percy was cut off as Theodore grabbed his ankle and brought him the hard way to the ground. Theodore took off running towards his staff. Percy sat up and pointed his trident at the lake. He felt his aura flow through the platinum. The teeth became the tips of his fingers. A wave of water erupted from the lake and pummeled Theodore to the sand. He spluttered and coughed up the lake.

“Seriously?” he yelled.

“Don’t question my lesson plan!”

Percy bumped the trident back to his chain and it downsized to its lightweight charm, magically clinging to his necklace. He splayed out on his back, then willed the water level to rise and greet him. The surf caressed his back as he floated out into the lake. He closed his eyes and breathed in the air. Percy could feel Theodore close by, joining him in his reverie. The water’s surface connected to Percy like nerves under a second skin.

“Percy!” someone shouted.

He must have fallen asleep at some point. The brightness hurt his eyes when he opened them. He had apparently drifted to the far side of the lake. On the shore, he could make out a small figure waving him down. It was not Theodore — he tread water next to him. Percy squinted. 

It was Nico.

* * *

This was the third time he had been in Reyna’s private office space and each time he had wished he hadn’t. This time was no different, after Nico had deposited Percy at the doorway. Frank and Hazel sat to his left. The praetor herself studied the Sibylline book open on her desk. 

“You say your father appeared to you today. Here. In this camp?” Reyna asked.

“Yes,” Frank said earnestly. “He ordered a quest. I’m not lying, ask your dogs.”

Aurum and Argentum, gold and silver, wagged their tails and sniffed the air.

“What did he say exactly?” Reyna said, rubbing her temples. “The prophecies we have, they’re not even remotely related to what you’re relaying to me.”

Hazel slipped her hand into his.

“I don’t know, Reyna,” Frank replied. “Mars isn’t exactly the poetic type. He just told me he finds it _deeply_ important that the legion’s missing stockpile be returned to camp.”

“And he wants _you_ to do it?” Reyna asked harshly. Frank got red in the face. 

“No offense,” Reyna scoffed. “But you’re not exactly my first choice. Being a _probatio_ and all.”

Percy raised his hand.

“Sorry, why am I here?”

Reyna scowled.

“Because you’re going with them.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Percy said, leaning forward in his seat. “Who said that?”

He felt a stabbing pain right in his chest cavity, a torch being pressed into his lung. Percy could not explain it. Just a few weeks prior, he had been willing to help Reyna with her politicking, maybe even rise to praetor after he completed a quest...so why now did it hurt him just to think about it? His brain tickled along his memory lapses. 

“I invited you, and Hazel, of course,” Frank said meekly. “You’re kind of my only other friend. And Reyna said you’d want to go.”

Percy liked Frank. He really did. He was one of the only people in the Fifth Cohort, and camp in general, that he got along with. Percy could not help but feel bad for him, having to lead a hero’s quest with so little experience. Frank did not seem to care that Percy had even less experience, but he supposed his preternatural skill on the battlefield amounted to something.

“Oh, uh, of course, man,” Percy said, though not entirely happy about it. “What is this going to involve?”

“Without a prophecy, there is no way to know for sure,” Reyna admitted. “But we do know where the stockpile of weapons Mars referred to is located. That’s enough to get you started.”

“And that would be?”

“Alaska. The land beyond the gods.”

* * *

Percy met Theodore on the _via praetoria_. He was kicking pebbles with the toes of his boots. He looked funny, wearing a swimsuit with his work boots and nothing else, their afternoon at the lake having been interrupted.

“What was that about?” he asked Percy when he approached. Percy’s shoulders sank.

“I’m going on a quest,” Percy sulked. Theodore hid his thick lips in a thin line. “I sort of told Reyna a while back I was interested in one. And I guess opportunity knocked.”

“Why do you want to go on a quest?” Theodore asked, then realization struck. Disappointment contaminated his next question. “Is this about the election?”

Percy pursed his lips. An understanding passed between them that they wouldn’t talk about it further, for the sake of avoiding an argument. Octavian wasn’t worth it.

“When do you leave?” Theodore buried his hands in his pockets.

“The morning after next.”

Theodore was silent. Percy dug his elbow into Theodore’s stomach.

“Come on, isn’t this what we were preparing for? You knew Joe was gonna grow up and leave the nest eventually.”

“Yeah,” Theodore mumbled. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Percy could see the life sap out of his friend within the minute. Percy understood. Who wouldn’t miss their best friend? Worry about them on a trip that carried a high risk of death or injury?

“Hey, I’ll be fine,” Percy said. “I have the trident. _My_ prophecy says I’ll be victorious. I’ll be back in no time.”

“Let’s...let’s just go get something to eat.”

* * *

And they ate a muted meal fit for a funeral.


	11. Chapter 11

The wind was always chilly just before daybreak, a perfect time for a run before the camp basks inescapably under the sun. Percy dynamically stretched outside the Fifth Cohort barracks, cycling through high-knees, calf raises, and lunges. Jumping jacks ruffled his purple windbreaker. His platinum trident charm bounced off of his chest like a metronome in _allegro_. His heart pumped warm blood. At the break of sweat, Percy stopped, rested his hands on his head, and let his breathing even out. This was odd. Theodore was never this late. 

He waited a few more minutes, passing the time with tricep dips on a wooden bench, untying and retying his running shoes. Eventually, he jogged over to the Second Cohort’s barracks. Just his luck, Octavian was on his way out. Percy thought about turning around, but he had already been seen. He slowed to a walk.

“Heard you got a quest,” Octavian said as he unlatched the front gate. Percy could feel his displeasure. Discontentment tended to cling to Octavian like a rolling fog, but today it felt particularly heavy. Dangerous. Octavian was surely smart enough to know Reyna had a hand in convincing Frank to add Percy to the roster, an integral part of her long-term plan to give Octavian serious contention for the open praetor seat.

“Though all three heroes are from the Fifth Cohort, of all places,” Octavian said. “We might as well have sent the kitchen help.”

“You and I both know that we are more than capable,” Percy replied. “Where has your untarnished War Games record gone again?”

“Ah, yes, our little _playdates_ ,” Octavian sneered. “I sure hope beating up some prepubescents has adequately prepared you for fighting monsters, which, may I remind you, you haven’t even seen before.”

Percy paled. Octavian wasn’t wrong. What awaited him in the real world, lurking in the shadows, licensed to kill without mercy?

“You are more than welcome to replace me, Octavian. After all, you are the senior officer. I’m sure Frank and Hazel would really benefit from your years of experience.”

Octavian scowled. 

“You drive a tough bargain, but I’m afraid I can restore the legion’s honor without having to run errands for a war god. Now if you excuse me, I have a campaign to run.”

As Octavian brushed past him, Percy grabbed his elbow.

“Is Theodore in there?” Percy blurted. 

Octavian wrenched his arm away in disgust. 

“Don’t touch me,” he said. “And no. I came to make a house call, since I haven’t had the pleasure of his presence recently. His attention has been...divided.”

The centurion gave him a pointed look.

“If you don’t believe me, try to see for yourself. The Second Cohort tends to be...belligerent, before they’ve had their coffee.”

Octavian stalked away down the _via praetoria_. Percy watched the dark windows of the low barracks, checking for any signs of movement, any shadow of Theodore changing into his running clothes. But he knew Octavian wasn’t lying.

Percy went on his run alone.

* * *

He hoped that he would run into Theodore if he went on with his normal routine. He was not at the bathhouse, soaking in the _frigidarium_. Percy, without much hope, even checked the subterranean spa. He was not in the places him and Percy usually frequented, nor was he at breakfast. Percy, despite sharing a meal with Hazel and Frank, felt strangely unmoored without Theodore there. They spent almost every waking moment exercising, or training, or working together, it left Percy with a hollow feeling when his companion was absent. _For gods’ sakes, Percy,_ he told himself, _it’s been three hours_. 

He took a trip to the forge, which Percy chided himself for not checking first thing in the morning. Theodore probably had work to finish up. But when Percy popped his head into Theodore’s workshop, the place was cold and drafty. No fire burned in the hearth. His blueprints, typically omnipresent on the drawing board and cast aside on the workbenches, were for once organized and packed away in their tubes. Where was he?

Something Reyna had told him nagged at the back of his brain. _Theodore has the tendency to worship the work he does over the people he’s with._ He made Reyna’s mechanical dogs for her. She made it sound like they had become friends while they worked on Reyna’s project, maybe even more, then Theodore moved onto the next one at the drop of a hat. Was Percy’s friendship just a fad for him? Did Theodore get bored, now that the trident was all said and done? Now that there was nothing to stimulate him, or force him to see Percy everyday, did their friendship just crumble to dust? He remembered Theodore enforcing a distance at dinner the previous night. _I should have seen this coming. The red flag was there. Reyna warned me._

Between his cohort’s training exercises and his quest preparations all afternoon with Hazel, Frank, and Reyna, Percy constantly searched his surroundings for any sign of his friend. He hallucinated a tall silhouette in the crowd several times, resulting in a few minor injuries during sword-fighting lessons. What was becoming of him? Why did this obsession grip him so tightly?

Percy credited it to his amnesia. As far as he knew, his life could be measured in weeks, months, from the Wolf House until now. Theodore was his closest friend, his best friend. When his entire past dissipated into wisps of smoke, Theodore was his present. And he wasn’t in New Rome. He wasn’t at the lake. He wasn’t organizing the armory. He wasn’t offering sacrifices on Temple Hill. He missed all three meals.

The sun set with no word on Theodore’s whereabouts. He even cracked and asked Octavian again, a new low for him. Percy was scheduled to leave at dawn, on a boat the legion still had in commission despite not being a seafaring empire. He mournfully took an early bedtime with Frank, knowing if he did not he would be exhausted the next morning. 

The rest of his cohort filtered in after dark and Percy could not fall asleep. It was nearing midnight, but his thoughts ran wild. Anger seethed under his ribcage. Theodore did not even say goodbye. He spent weeks investing in a productive, workable partnership to forge his trident, sometimes having to chip away at whatever wall Theodore decided to put up. Something else huddled under the anger, too: melancholy. 

Percy could hear it like a pin drop. He could not explain how his ears picked up on it, so far away. Maybe it was the stillness of the camp after hours. But he knew he distinctly heard the closing of the forge door, its heavy hinges thudding to a halt and a click. Percy swung his legs over the bunk, pulled on a camp t-shirt and sneakers over his bare feet, and tiptoed out in his boxers. 

The night was cool. Percy did think to bring his windbreaker, but the breathable nylon would make too much noise trying to sneak out past curfew. As expected, the door to the forge was unlocked. Percy opened and closed it so slowly, it barely uttered so much as a creak. He could see, across the main workspace, a dim orange flicker on the wall emitting from Theodore’s workshop. When Percy reached the archway, Theodore was prodding the logs of a freshly-sparked fire, his back to him. Percy was used to this view.

“I thought you would be in bed,” Theodore muttered, without turning around.

“Where were you today?” Percy asked.

“I took a walk.”

“You took a walk?”

“San Francisco.”

The little beast that had nested in his gut over the past few weeks was sniffing the air, trying to decide how the winds fared. Seeing Theodore brought him peace of mind, but it also pinched that ball of nerves growing inside him all day that leeched off of his rage. He felt caught in a hurricane, one foot buffeted by the torrent and the other planted firmly in the stillness of the eye. 

“I leave in the morning,” Percy told him.

“I know.”

“You didn’t say goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

The word punched him in the jugular. Percy spent over a month with Theodore in his workshop. So why did this feel like the first time they met here in this room? How had they regressed so far? Sisyphus pushed his boulder to the top of the hill, just for it to roll back down again.

“Why are you treating this like an end of an era?” Percy asked. “I’m going to come back. We can— we can make more weapons together, if... if that’s what you want.”

Theodore rested his hand above his head on the brick wall.

“What if you don’t come back, Percy?” he asked and turned to him, his big brown eyes wide. He looked like a young cow, begging Percy not to drag him to the slaughterhouse. “What then?”

Theodore partially registered that Percy was in his underwear. He blinked.

“I—” Percy searched for words. “I don’t know. But I’m not going to let you treat me like everyone else.”

“Everyone else?”

“Yes, you— you inject all of your passion into the projects you’re working on, then just...spirit away,” Percy spat. “You leave nothing left for the people in your life.”

“Is that what people say about me?” Theodore faltered, then wiped his face free of emotion. His next words came out hurt, embittered. “Is that what you believe?”

“Well I could very well die in the coming days and your plan was to avoid me until I left!” Percy shouted. “You didn’t even say a word!” 

The dragon scorched his insides with blue, cosmic fire. Percy was burning from within.

“Imagine that,” Percy sneered. “Your best friend...not even—” 

“I never _wanted_ to be friends with you, Percy,” Theodore snapped.

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“I told you on day one! In this room!” Theodore yelled, throwing his hands in the air. “Your father’s children are horsemen of the apocalypse!”

“You don’t have to be _afraid_ of me, Theod—”

“I read your prophecy, Percy! I tried to keep my distance, but you _wouldn’t listen_!” Theodore screamed. “You— you kept telling me _jokes_ , and you kept asking me _questions_ , and you— you wouldn’t _shut up!_ You wouldn’t leave me _alone_. You’re _infuriating_.”

“Well if you dislike me so much, you could have done a much better job at showing it!”

Theodore pounded his forehead with his fists, then tore at the roots of his bangs.

“I _don’t_ dislike you, you—” Theodore’s cheeks reddened. An exasperated growl broke free from its shackles and ripped from his throat the exact moment his boot connected with a metal waste bin, sending it clattering and clanging off the ceiling, wall, and finally, the floor. He fixed on a point somewhere in the corner of the room — anywhere but Percy. His jaw set, resolutely shaking his head. 

“I never wanted to be friends,” Theodore spat.

Percy bit his tongue. His brain was short-circuiting. Whatever emotions it was trying to process were snatched up and chewed out.

“Theodore, I…”

He couldn’t finish. He feared if he opened his mouth one more time, an inferno would stampede up his throat and he would never be able to speak again. Inexplicable saltwater welled in his lower lashline. He studied the floor.

“I don’t know what you—”

And suddenly Theodore’s lips were crashing into his — heat and force and friction. Theodore’s hands wrapped behind Percy’s ears. Then just as suddenly, he pulled away, his fingers still threaded through Percy’s hair. His breath tickled Percy’s nose. Theodore searched his eyes, now wild with the terror of a deer caught in a freight train’s path. 

“I— I’m sorry,” Theodore stuttered, pulling away. Percy’s eyes glistened, indecipherable in the dim, as cryptic as a deep tide pool. “I shouldn’t’ve—”

In the instant Theodore thought he made his gravest mistake, Percy kissed him back, with equal fervor. Yet it was Theodore who, again, withdrew.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Theodore whispered, swift and breathless. “I didn’t want to hurt myself. I thought it would be easier, if I...if I...”

Percy’s dumbstruck gaze never left Theodore’s lips, trained on them like they were alien, entirely new. Then he closed the distance once more.

They did not take time to breathe. Percy tangled his fingers in Theodore’s mane as one of Theodore’s hands drifted down Percy’s back. At the small, he pulled him in closer. An electric shock sparked in his memory void — a fuse blowing. But even that couldn’t distract him from the sensations he was experiencing. Theodore’s lips were plump and soft and tasted like coffee, at glorious odds with the scarce stubble that grazed Percy’s cheeks. Theodore’s hands held him so forcefully, so possessively. The hand on his lower back slammed their bodies together. The son of fire radiated warmth.

Theodore pulled away to catch his breath, but only for a moment. He took the front of Percy’s shirt in his hands and ripped it down the middle, like he had the day they harvested platinum ore. Percy gasped as Theodore grabbed him by the waist, slipped his hands over bare skin, and shoved him against the workbench. Percy grunted and his breath caught. Theodore pecked from his ear down his jawline, then pulled him back in for another kiss. 

Percy became marionette with Theodore’s hair, and the two discovered each other.

* * *

They laid on the floor — Percy gazing into the dying fire, the top of his head resting under Theodore’s chin. He could see their murky reflections in the bottom of the furnace: Percy, cuddled into the contours of Theodore’s muscles. He snuggled into the crook of Theodore’s arm draped over him. With Theodore so close, he didn’t feel cold, in spite of the concrete floor and destroyed t-shirt.

“I’ve never done that before,” Percy whispered.

“What? Kiss a boy?” Theodore asked.

“Yeah, and...kiss anyone. Like that,” Percy added.

“How do you know?”

Theodore’s hand traced Percy’s scalp. He pushed stray hair out of Percy’s eyes. It felt good.

“I just do,” Percy said. “I don’t think I could forget.”

“There’s no way I was your first kiss.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Have you _seen_ yourself?” Theodore asked. Percy’s eyebrows knit.

“What do you mean?”

Theodore sighed.

“Neptune didn’t sacrifice beauty for function when he made you, did he?” he whispered. Percy sat with that compliment for a long time.

“You know, I don’t even know your last name.”

Theodore chuckled. Percy could feel his chest rumble.

“My full name is Theodore Aquino Oso.”

Percy awkwardly turned his head, attempting eye contact in their position.

“Your name is...Teddy Bear?”

“She did that on purpose,” Theodore grumbled.

“What?”

Theodore laughed — a big, full-chested laugh.

“The convention is to take my mom’s last name as my middle, then my dad’s as my last. My dad doesn’t have a last name, obviously, so she got a bit of creative freedom.”

“ _Teddy Bearrrrrrr_ ,” Percy teased, rolling his R with a Spanish trill.

“It was originally supposed to be _Burro_ for Vulcan’s sacred animal, but she shot that down. Could you imagine? Theodore Aquino Ass,” Theodore shook his head. “No, my mom negotiated for something better, stronger.”

“The teddy bear.”

“Shut up, Percy.”

“Only if you make me, Teddy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“No, no, it’s Theodorable.”

“I will Percycute you if you ever say that again.”

“Oh, that was a good one. Calling me cute and threatening me at the same time.”

“I’m nothing if not a multitasker,” Theodore smirked. “But really, don’t call me that. You make me sound like a school boy.”

“Whatever you say...Teddy,” Percy said, testing the waters and expecting a reaction, but it seemed Theodore resigned himself to his new nickname. “I like Ass, though. It suits you.”

“I know you like ass. You grabbed it many times.”

Percy laughed. He groggily reached his arm around and played with the hair on the back of Teddy’s head. 

“What’s your last name?” Teddy asked. For once, Percy felt the circuitry in the core of his brain light up and thrum with life, like power restoring itself to an abandoned carnival — a revival of nostalgia and neon. 

“Jackson,” he whispered.

“Percy Jackson.”

“Teddy Bear.”

“ _Shut up_.”

Percy did shut up, because he fell asleep, nose nestled into Teddy’s throat with a piece of his prophecy unmistakably clear.


	12. Chapter 12

His circadian rhythm chiseled into his slumber like a nail into glass, cracks spiraling away from the spike until the pane shattered with a crackle and crunch. Percy’s eyes shot open, vision clouded with black splotches. He blinked them away and found himself buried in Teddy’s neck, Teddy’s arm still wrapped tightly around his torso. Percy tried to extract himself from Teddy’s clutches, but the more he fought, the tighter he was constricted. He planted a kiss on Teddy’s lips. That woke him up.

Teddy’s eyelashes fluttered. He gave him a groggy, silly grin and reached up to place his hand on Percy’s cheek.

“Good morning.”

Percy painfully clenched Teddy’s wrist and got to his knees. The workshop had no windows, no sunlight to gauge the day.

“The quest!” Percy exclaimed. “What time is it?”

Realization dawned on Teddy and he propped himself up on his elbows. Percy stood up and looked down at himself, at his boxers, sockless sneakers, camp t-shirt cleaved down the center. Ash and grime splattered his abdomen from where bare skin met the workshop floor while he slept. He could not even fathom what his hair looked like.

“Oh gods,” Percy said. He caught Teddy raking his eyes over him. How Teddy — the rugged, handsome blacksmith that he was — could find Percy attractive right now, he had no clue. Teddy’s thick eyebrows knit together and scrunched up his forehead, the way it did when he was worried. Percy fought the urge to drown himself in Teddy’s lips.

“I have to go, Teddy.”

Teddy nodded solemnly. He pulled Percy by the hand and his body went limp. Percy fell to his knees and let Teddy pull him into an embrace. The timing was not fair. Before yesterday, Percy did not even register that his feelings for Teddy were deeper, more intense than a close friendship. Gods forbid, he did not even recognize his attraction until Teddy’s teeth grazed his ear, his hands kneaded his skin. Every second they were not touching was a second wasted.

Percy deflated and pouted. He kissed Teddy on the cheek. Teddy chuckled and sat up, lifting Percy up off of him. He flopped like a ragdoll.

“Up you go,” Teddy groaned. “Come on. There’s a walk of shame with your name on it.”

Teddy got them standing up, Percy clutching his forearms.

“Are you coming to see us off?” Percy asked.

“Percy, you’re already late.”

Percy gave him one last kiss, trying to transmit a spectrum of feelings that Percy himself couldn’t even name. Teddy toyed with the trident dangling around his neck.

“This will return to your neck if you lose it, got it?” Teddy said. “Right where my hands will be if you’re gone more than a week.”

Teddy pretended to strangle him, shaking Percy back and forth, pressing his thumbs into the crux of his collarbone. Percy rolled his eyes. He was still reluctant to leave.

“Now go,” Teddy commanded. “Before the whole legion sees you in your underwear.”

* * *

A sun-kissed haze coated the valley when Percy emerged from the forge. The daylight blinded him until his eyes adjusted. A slew of curses dove off Percy’s tongue as he speed-walked down the _via praetoria_ , already populated by a handful of early-risers. It must have been two, maybe three hours past daybreak. He caught a few stares as he sped to the Fifth Cohort barracks. The way his shirt was shredded plus his general disheveled appearance — gods, he hoped people thought he was in a nasty midnight scrap with a monster. 

Fifty feet from the Fifth Cohort bunks, thinking he was home-free, a hand wrapped around his wrist like a vice.

_“Where in the name of Pluto have you been?”_ Reyna growled, dragging him away from the barracks and towards the _principia_. Her fingernails dug painfully into his skin. She would not even look at him. Percy decided to run with the monster attack alibi.

“I got in a fight,” Percy said.

“I can _see_ that,” Reyna said. “You were supposed to leave hours ago. What were you even doing outside the camp?”

Percy did not have the bandwidth to come up with a good lie, which ended up turning out fine. Reyna was more interested in venting her frustration than seeking out actual answers to her questions. On any other occasion, Percy showing up like this would warrant an interrogation, but Reyna’s tunnel vision kept her focus on the quest that should already be underway.

“Poor Frank’s out of his mind. He thought you bailed.”

“I would never do that to him—”

“I had him pack for you. Thank the gods he grabbed you an extra set of clothes.”

She towed him behind her like a child guilty of misbehavior. Her purple praetor’s cloak whipped in the wind. He caught a few wolf whistles coming from passersby. Frank and Hazel sat on the steps of the principia. Their faces lit up when they saw him, relief washing over the two. Reyna released her chokehold on Percy’s forearm and deposited him at the base of the marble facade. Percy tried to paint an apology on his face.

“You’ll find the boat docked at Alameda. It’s not much, but it will get you up the coast.”

“Thank you, Reyna,” Percy said. She rolled her eyes.

“Put some clothes on.”

* * *

The boat Reyna spoke of was a sad excuse for one. The trio had to squeeze into a dinghy the size of a rowboat, coated in barnacles and worn down from years wasting away in the brine. 

“The Romans didn’t have much of a navy,” Hazel explained. Percy discovered he could self-propel the vessel without the use of oars. The currents of the Pacific Ocean bent to his will and shot them up the California coast. The Golden Gate Bridge was behind them in minutes. As he let the salt spray tickle his face, Hazel and Frank caught him up to speed on the details of their quest. 

Back in the 1980s, a quest to the tundra went awry, resulting in an entire cohort’s worth of Imperial gold military equipment to be lost in the frigid waters of the gulf. It was a bloodbath, neither the bodies nor the weapons were recovered. The memory was a stain on the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, an embarrassment. Rectifying the mistakes of legionnaires’ past would certainly bring honor back to Camp Jupiter. Percy wished it did not have to involve him. He missed Teddy already. 

They spent the day on the water, travelling faster than the speedboats in their unmotored dinghy. At sunset, Hazel complained of seasickness so Percy directed the boat into calmer waters, up the mouth of the Columbia River. He found he had perfect bearings, coordinates and gridded maps lacing his vision.

“Portland, Oregon,” Percy told his companions, as their boat veered into the shadow of the cityscape. As soon as they docked, Hazel clambered up the boardwalk and hurled over the side. Frank climbed up after her and rubbed her back. He glanced at Percy apologetically and motioned with his head towards the port. Percy took the hint and headed towards the city. 

The area was busy in the evening, bustling with mortals hopping from bar to bar to seafood restaurant. It was lively and homey, people living their lives without certain death hanging over their heads, which only served to make Percy angry. His life, of which he could remember, consisted of him adapting to new territory then immediately being uprooted. He grappled with life in the wilderness for over a week, then was ushered into the rigid structures of a Roman legion. He forged a meaningful relationship with someone, and right when a new normal was in his grasp, it was snatched away. He had started to feel like _himself_ , whoever that person was, before his memory was stolen from him.

Being aggravated with Teddy, then being enamored with Teddy, was a welcome distraction to the turmoil Percy did not want to face. Now that he was alone for the first time in months, standing solitary on the edge of the West Coast, it weighed on him. He knew his first and last name. He knew his father’s name, but not his father. Did he have a family? Did he have friends? If so, were they demigods too? They had to be, Percy decided. How else could he have fared so well in combat? But where were they, if not Camp Jupiter?

Most importantly, were they searching for him? A knot of nausea formed in his stomach. What if his friends found him and he didn’t remember a single thing about them? 

_At least he would have Teddy. He would always have Teddy._

Percy observed the surrounding city. He paced the sidewalk, looking for a convenience store or somewhere he could pick up some food and extra supplies. Behind the skyscrapers, a snow-capped mountain loomed in the distance. Percy felt a buzzing in his ears, looking at it. It entranced him. It was so beautiful, standing tall, proud, and evergreen over Portland. Its effect was hypnotic. 

Percy elbowed a pedestrian, not taking his eyes off the summit. The buzzing in his ears got louder, drowning the sounds of nightlife out as if a plane were flying overhead. He started to feel dizzy.

“What mountain is that?” he heard himself say. The person he stopped looked to where Percy’s gaze was fixed.

“Oh, that one?” they said, pointing at the peak. “That’s Mount Saint Helens.”

Then Percy blacked out.

* * *

Percy woke up on a mountainside. The soil was warm beneath his cheek. He would have liked to lay there, have restful dreams for eternity under the blissful fog that permeated his brain. He was shaken out of his reverie by the distinctive clunk of axe on wood. Percy rolled into a sitting position and steadied himself on a pine trunk. Gods, he was dizzy.

He meandered down the incline, steadying himself on trees. Sometimes he tripped and stumbled sideways. His inner ears were sore, throwing off his natural sense of balance and awareness of his body in space. He picked his way down the hill, praying for the return of his proprioception, until he reached a lone cabin.

The wood that composed its walls looked relatively fresh, either dark with its last semblances of life or perhaps it had rained recently. Its roof, made of interlocking leaflets of sheet metal, had not yet been eaten alive by rust. In the property’s meager yard, piles upon piles of broken glass, liquor bottles, mosaics, lightbulbs, and window panes dotted the grass like molehills. Closer to the forest’s edge, a tall young man wielded an axe, ready to split another log over a tree stump.

“Teddy!” Percy shouted, smiling wide. Teddy chopped the log in half with a thump. He wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his forearm. He did not pay Percy any attention. A little stung, Percy walked up to him. _So we’re ignoring each other again?_

Teddy set another log on the stump, heaved, and swung. Two even pieces fell off either side into the dirt. 

“Teddy,” Percy repeated. He did not react to his presence, which was when Percy noticed his face. Teddy did not look freshly-shaven. No, he did not have facial hair in the first place — meager though it was as Percy knew him. He wiped his forehead again and Percy got a second viewing of his forearm. His characteristic SPQR tattoo was nowhere to be found. This was Teddy when he was younger, before coming to camp, Percy realized. This was a dream, or a mirage. Or a memory. A time capsule.

_“Anak!”_ a female voice shouted, from inside the cottage.

A middle-aged Filipino woman, dressed in flame-charred coveralls with a pair of gigantic spectacles too big for her head, stepped out from the back door. She could not have been much more than five feet tall, a stunning contrast to Teddy. He was already taller than Percy, at fifteen. Her short hair, haphazardly chopped like her son’s as if both members of the family couldn’t afford to waste time on a visit to the barber, nearly disappeared under a plaid bandana. Teddy turned to her. No one noticed Percy’s presence.

“I need you to head to town,” she said. Her words sluiced through a distinct Filipino accent. “I’m out of propane. I can’t lose what’s in the kiln.”

She beckoned with a nod of her head and disappeared. Teddy huffed and threw down his axe. Percy followed him into the cabin. The place was delightfully chaotic. Teddy’s mother used every square inch of the place for her art. Countertops shelved unfinished pieces of sculptures, fragments of extraordinary chandeliers hung from the ceiling rigged on hooks and wires, and furnaces and glass-blowing equipment were its centerpiece. Stacks on stacks of chopped logs — Teddy’s work — precariously took up an entire wall. Percy was cautious around the glasswork, even though he could not physically interact with the environment. The floor was uneven concrete, which could not have been comfortable for its inhabitants, but this place was not designed for living. Two blow-up mattresses had been hastily pushed into the corner.

Teddy’s mother dropped an empty propane tank and a wad of dollar bills into her son’s hands.

“Hurry please, Teddy,” she said, distractedly adjusting the position of a hyper-realistic glass donkey on an out-of-place side table. There was an odd, tangible coldness between them. “No street lights up here.”

“Yes, Nanay,” Teddy nodded obediently.

Teddy nodded and kicked open the front door. He picked his way down a dirt path that wound down the mountain, a well-trodden ribbon unspooling through the forest floor. Percy could see the lights of a small town peeking through the tree branches, about a mile away, twinkling like fireflies. The climb was steep. No wonder Teddy’s mom made him run the errands. With legs like his, he probably cut travel time in half. Percy trailed him for a quarter-mile.

As he walked, his right thigh began to feel uncomfortably warm, not unlike a muscle during a tough workout. The sensation wasn’t foreign. Then a fire ripped through his quad.

“Ah!” Percy yelled, clutching his leg.

Nothing was visibly bothering him. His pant leg looked as normal as denim ever did. But his leg, oh gods _his leg_ , felt like someone was driving a branding iron into his flesh. Teddy went on ahead and Percy limped after him. A similar warmth spread across his chest. He braced himself in anticipation, but that was not nearly enough to prepare him for the pain he felt. 

Percy collapsed on the road, screaming until his vocal chords went hoarse. The phantom inferno spread down his legs, across his torso. This, Percy decided, was what it felt like to be burned at the stake. His fragile mind searched for answers. Was he not supposed to be here, in this timeline? Did his soul have a visceral reaction to being in the past? Was this hellfire bent on incinerating him from two existences, the past and the present?

He was flat on the ground now, his entire body being licked by invisible flames. Percy resigned himself to the fact that he was going to die here. This is how he would die. There would be nothing after this. His spirit would rest in the same place his memories went: the abyss.

He felt his mortal molecules being ripped apart bond by bond, releasing atomic firecrackers of energy amplified by the power encoded in his godly DNA. _His godly DNA_ , Percy thought. His last hope. Percy yelled so loudly, across time and space the birds flew from their perches. He felt cement in his gut, and the earth shook. An explosion rocked the mountaintop. 

The tectonic plates underneath him convulsed and downed trees. His chin pounded against the quaking ground, gravel angrily digging into his chin, abrading the skin of his neck. He heard Teddy’s voice down below, out of sight.

“Mom?” his voice carried, as scared as a child in the dark.

Teddy sprinted back up the path, stumbling over the aftershocks. He had dropped the propane tank and cash. Percy wanted to say something to him, but he could not speak. It’s not like he could have heard him anyway.

The burning sensation was dying down, dulling into a still-unpleasant heat. Percy found he could move, somewhat. He stretched his fingers out. His body looked physically fine, but why did he hurt so much? What _was_ that?

He heaved, rolled onto his back, and watched the sky. Great clouds of black smoke curled from the mouth of the volcano. Lava poured from its maw like a giant tongue, saliva dripping off in rivulets that coursed through the forest, setting it alight. It moved quicker than Percy thought lava would travel, or maybe Percy had lost all sense of time as he laid there, unable to gather enough strength to move more than an inch.

Percy watched Teddy’s house wash away in the flood of molten earth. He heard shouting, crying, but he couldn’t attach it to a specific person. The entire forest in front of him was an ocean of red-hot waves. Soon, it would drown him and Percy would actually die this time. He tried to muster a morsel of stoic acceptance. He wanted to cry. Maybe he was crying and the heat immediately evaporated his tears.

Someone came running down the mountain and stopped just in front of him. It was Teddy. Good old Teddy. He had a shirt tied around his mouth and nose, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. Teddy turned to the wreckage behind him. He could see, in Teddy’s posture alone, that he knew he was not going to make it out alive. The lava was advancing too quickly. His makeshift home was up in flames. His mother was nowhere to be seen.

The molten river was upon them. It slithered towards them like a python, like a venomous serpent that had already stunned its prey, ready to swallow them whole in one vicious gulp. Teddy stood above Percy, almost defensively, even though he could not have known that Percy was there. Percy coughed. The smoke was unbearable. As the lava came within Teddy’s reach, clawing towards him with viscous fingers, he screamed at the top of his lungs.

_“I HATE YOU!”_

The lava erupted around them, spraying cleanly to either side. Not a drop touched either of them. Percy could still only see Teddy’s back. He watched his heavy breathing. He could sense the dam breaking inside of him, not just of his anger, his despair, but of raw Vulcanic power being released into his bloodstream. The son of the fire god turned his hand once over, his fingertips suddenly foreign to him. However, the lava in front of them kept its dangerous, lethal pace.

Teddy roared and swatted the air like he was slapping someone. The advancing lava flew to their left and set a pine tree ablaze. He scratched the air in the other direction and the molten earth shot to their right. He shouted obscenities until his voice was hoarse, devolving into tortured wails, curses at his father, then a simple repetition of the same three words: _I hate you. I hate you. I hate you._ Teddy did this for gods knew how long. Percy could never have known. Their entire surroundings were on fire, awash in boiling lava, save for the sliver where Teddy stood and Percy lay. Teddy was parting the red sea.

When the lava cooled into the first semblances of black igneous rock, Teddy collapsed. His body splayed out ahead of Percy’s feet. Heat still radiated off of the newly-formed ground, but it had crept to a halt. The mountainside was barren, wiped into a blank slate.

How long did they lie there? Days? It was difficult to tell with smog blocking the sun, though every few hours Percy could see a glint of sunlight breaking through the volcanic mushroom cloud. 

Percy was able to sit up at some point. He watched over Teddy, who had not moved a muscle in a very long time. His fingertips, to his surprise, pressed warmly against the skin of Teddy’s neck, when he wanted to check his pulse. The flow was silent, nearly invisible, but he could feel it, sense it there, dribbling down the artery like the last, pathetic vestiges of water from a hose being turned off. Suddenly, the hairs stood up on the back of Percy’s neck. Someone, or _something_ , else was here. He craned his neck behind him.

The village was razed. There was not a tree in sight, just solidified black earth, the beginnings of basalt, and wisps of smoke. Bounding up the mountain was a pack of wolves.

They surrounded Percy and Teddy. Bringing up the rear and closing the circle was the she-wolf, Lupa. She was not looking at Teddy, though. She was looking at _him_. She did not speak, but he got the message: _Leave_. 

Percy stood up, his legs stiff. This was the first time he had used them in a long time. He took one last look at Teddy, who he was sure was okay. One of her betas trod forward and sniffed his friend, turning his unconscious body over with its snout. Under Percy’s foot, a patch of grass grew. A pine sapling stood petite and proud. That made him happy. The mountain would live again someday. He limped away.

Out of the wolves’ sight, Percy hiked over the mess he made. The landscape confused him. This was Teddy’s past. How could he relive someone else’s memory? More importantly, how could he change the course of Teddy’s life? No, he didn’t change the course of Teddy’s memory. He had always been a part of it. _But that’s impossible, I’m not here._

“Yes, you are,” said someone behind him, a familiar voice. “You sacrificed a life today for your own. Many lives.”

Percy turned. There, emerging from a crack in the scorched earth, was a woman. She wore an earthen veil that concealed most of her face. Beneath, Percy could see her eyes were closed. Her voice sounded distant, ancient, like it was emanating from somewhere far, far away. It was her: the woman who whispered in his ear on the Tiber river bank, and on the Field of Mars, so many months ago. Yet he remembered the textures of her voice so clearly, like the contours of a dune.

“I didn’t mean to,” Percy croaked. His voice box had also been obsolete. “I never wanted to hurt anybody.”

The lady had a thin smile.

“That's never a hero’s intention, is it? Hurting people...” She trailed off. “You are a powerful young man. Incredible you have been able to avert your own demise in two timelines. Perhaps an echo of your time spent with my son, the time lord.”

“What are you talking about?” Percy asked.

“Ah, yes, my granddaughter has played with your memories,” she said. “You were both here...and there.”

She nodded towards the jagged crater at the top of the volcano.

“I was...in the volcano?”

“Yes,” she said. “Another you. Surely you could feel it, no?”

Percy thought to when his body felt like it was being ignited from the inside. 

“I was dying,” Percy said.

“You almost died here as well. Your body has such resilience,” she pondered. “I am surprised the rift in time did not kill you altogether. You are strong. The strongest I have sensed in many generations. I hope that we can work together. You have created new life for this place.”

Percy felt a familiar buzzing in his ears and he started feeling light-headed. The earth woman smirked.

“Don’t fret, we will have many more opportunities to talk. Your friends are worried about you.”

She disintegrated into clods of dirt, then Percy’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.


	13. Chapter 13

A police siren’s wail welcomed Percy into consciousness.

His wrists were strapped at his sides to a metal railing — that was the first thing he noticed without even needing to open his eyes. He was in a moving vehicle, he was sure of that, the way his body jostled with the bumps and ridges in the asphalt. He could hear metal stirring when the vehicle turned, like the rattling of a drawer of silverware or a toolbox. On the bright side, he was comfortable. His back rested on a foam pad. A mechanical beep-beep synced to his heartbeat. Percy forced his eyelids open. 

_Gods forbid._ He was in the back of an ambulance. Medical equipment stored in organized drawers clattered around with the flow of traffic. The foam mat he was on: a stretcher. The mortals must have requested medical attention after he fainted. Where were Hazel and Frank? Weren’t they supposed to be looking out for him?

A face blocked his view of the metallic interior. When his sight came into focus, a young nurse smiled down on him. She was cute — ginger hair, dimples. Her teeth glinted. She took a quick glance up at whoever was driving the ambulance.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “You took quite a spill.”

Percy already did not like her, despite her congenial appearance. Maybe it was because only Teddy was allowed to groom him like that. Something about her just felt _forced_ , like a bully who only halfway-reformed themselves after high school. Did Percy ever _go_ to high school? He did not let himself linger on the question. His facial expression must have given his dislike away immediately, because the EMT’s smile inverted.

“He knows,” she said to the driver, and she grabbed a nasty-looking syringe from a drawer and raised it above him, primed to strike. 

Percy, thinking on his feet, threw his restrained body weight to the side, successfully tipping over the stretcher he was strapped into. The nurse shrieked as the gurney crashed into her. Percy’s knee hit her leg and the impact reverberated like hollow metal. _Huh?_

He took another look at her and her appearance flickered holographically, switching between wholesome nurse and she-demon. One of her legs looked almost normal, save for the fact it was crafted out of some sort of bronze metal. Her other was like a faun’s, goat-like and hooved. Her red hair morphed between auburn and literal fire rooted to her scalp. She hissed and her incisors sharpened, her irises pigmented red. 

She had not let go of the syringe, which honestly made Percy more squeamish than her fangs. The she-demon jabbed downward as Percy kicked it out of her hand with the sole of his shoe. The glass shattered on the wall. The liquid inside sizzled and bore a hole in the floor. He struggled against his restraints. Great, his first monster fight would have to be no-handed. That’s fair.

The she-demon lunged, talons growing out of her fingernails. Percy lurched onto his stomach, swinging the stretcher on his back with him. Her body slammed into the steel drawers and the ambulance veered, throwing equipment off the wall. 

The stretcher was cumbersome and nearly his bodyweight. It crushed his nose into the floor, but at least for the moment, it pinned her against the drawers. Percy jerked his wrists against their straps, hoping to at least loosen them, but his squirming only seemed to make them constrict. There was no way he could grab his trident off his neck, much less wield it. He would have to improvise. 

His assailant growled, forced the stretcher away from her legs, and lumbered out of her temporary prison. _How did she do that?_ She pulled herself up and her bronze leg clunked against the floor. _Her other leg, the goat one,_ Percy thought. _Its strength comes from its range of motion._ That gave him an idea.

“This one’s feisty,” she hissed. “No wonder the Earth Mother likes you, boy.”

She stood directly behind him, in front of the ambulance’s rear double doors. Percy decided to test his flexibility. He rolled his head forward into a neck-breaking contortion. The ambulance was upside down, goat hoof and bronze ankle at the top of his vision. He started walking his legs forward. With his arms trapped at his sides, with every inch his feet moved closer to his head brought a new level of discomfort. He groaned. His knees were to his chest, toes on the floor, then Percy launched himself backwards with every muscle fiber available in his lower legs.

The she-demon, the stretcher, and its captive, Percy, shot from the back doors of the speeding ambulance onto a freeway overpass. Cars swerved and honked as Percy, luckily landing on the stretcher’s wheels, careened into the median. The she-demon was not so fortunate. She tumbled into the middle lane, gave Percy one last snarl, then exploded into pale golden dust as a semi-truck hit her head-on. The monster’s essence was whisked away in the wind. 

Laying there on his side amongst the unkempt grass and cigarette butts, his adrenaline refused to die down. He thought he could hear beeping, as if he was still connected to that machine in the ambulance. He was a bit roughened up from the collision, a few scrapes from the gravel burned and itched, but overall he was in one piece. An exhale escaped him that he did not realize he was holding.

Percy registered birds chirping. It was morning. How long had he been out? How long had they been driving? A few mortals that had pulled to the side of the road rushed over and unlatched him from his binds. He stumbled up and rubbed his wrists. They were chafed raw and faintly bleeding. The nice people asked if he was okay, if he needed anything, if they should call another ambulance. They were suffocating him.

“I just need a minute, thank you.”

He hobbled up the shoulder of the freeway. Traffic was slowly starting to move again, skirting around the fifteen-car pileup Percy had caused. The semi-truck that killed the she-demon had a deer-sized dent in its hood. He thought about how the monster shimmered between her human appearance and her true form, shrouded in thick mist. He wondered if the truck driver knew he hit a demon from the Underworld or if he was wracked with guilt over the involuntary manslaughter of a health care worker. This dredged up Percy’s memory of unintentionally destroying the mountain town, Teddy’s home, his…

_No._

Percy pushed that thought down so far, so forcefully, that he hoped it would fall into the abyss in his brain along with everything else he ever knew. A Tartarus for his worst thoughts. He wondered if a god had not taken his memories at all and instead he himself created a void where he could put everything he did not want to remember. What if he had wanted to repress his entire life and… start over? How traumatic were his first sixteen years that he would want to forget them? How many people had died? How many had he _hurt_ , using gifts from his father that were equally blessings and forces of destruction? That thought was depressing. He pushed that one to the void.

All he wanted to do was think about Teddy, be with Teddy. Percy had been gone, what? A little more than day? The prospect of returning to Camp Jupiter was the only motive he had to complete this quest, plus his sense of duty to Frank. He felt guilty for not having a strong desire to do this on behalf of Rome and the legion and the gods, like everyone else seemed to have. Truth be told, it never felt like home to him. At one point, he tried to convince himself otherwise. He liked competing in the War Games (with Teddy). He liked going swimming in the lake (with Teddy). He liked walking through New Rome and getting street food (with Teddy). The common denominator was not Camp Jupiter. 

A ways ahead of him, the runaway ambulance sunk sideways into a muddy ditch. The tires squelched and spun as the driver floored the gas, but the vehicle was stuck. The door opened and a she-demon tumbled out. He could see her throwing her claws up, airing her frustration. She looked bald from afar, when her hair appeared as translucent flames. Percy pulled his trident off of his necklace and it grew to full size in his hand. The platinum, consecrated in the water of the Little Tiber, burned cold in his hand. From fifty yards, Percy aimed, and threw his trident like a javelin. It sailed with the accuracy of a laser, the teeth caught her in the neck, and she melted into shimmering powder. He held his hand out. The weapon, just as Teddy said it would, flew back to his hand. He put it back on his necklace.

After a close inspection, Percy determined the ambulance was not damaged. It had a full tank of gas. The she-demons must have been planning for a long trip. The engine sputtered to life as he turned the key. Did he know how to drive? He _was_ sixteen after all. Percy felt natural, there in the driver’s seat, so he didn’t overthink it. After a few unsuccessful maneuvers with the drowned tires, he closed his eyes, concentrated, and pushed the ambulance out utilizing the water in the mud. In no time at all, he was cruising down the interstate.

I-84 followed the Columbia River eastwards from Portland towards Idaho, snaking through the alpine forests. Percy’s driving was adequate, but he wasn’t worried about getting pulled over. What police officer would pull over an ambulance? He figured out how to turn on the siren, and soon, every driver on the road would just get out of his way. 

He wanted to get back on the freeway in the other direction, back to Portland and Frank and Hazel, wherever they were. He took a winding exit, turns so tight that he could barely see around the curve. The asphalt needed replacing, the way Percy had to continuously swerve to avoid potholes. He took a glance in the rearview mirror, then back to the road, and Percy was suddenly slamming on his brakes.

There, in the middle of the right lane, emerging from the gravel of a pothole, was the earth woman he met in his vision. Her features were the same, regal and still, eyelids fluttering with R.E.M. The ambulance screeched to a halt, inches from her waist. Percy caught his breath. She did not move a muscle.

“Can you take a walk with me?” she calmly asked.

His legs moved without even thinking about it, then he was out on the pavement. The earth woman sunk back into the pothole from which she came, then materialized on the side of the road. Her skin adapted the weeds and litter from the roadside. She appeared as the earth appeared.

They walked side by side down a slope. The landscape got more wild, more natural as they descended, heading away from the interstate. Sap and pine needles stuck to Percy’s shoes, making the soil feel tacky under his feet. Soon, they arrived back at the banks of the Columbia. In the distance, on a bridge he must have crossed, Percy could see faint exhaust trails streaming from the cars creeping along like ants in a line. The woman spoke to him.

“Look what they’ve done to me. Waste. Contamination. I give them the gift of life and they poison me. They try taming me with asphalt and concrete. You humans are like mosquitos, sucking lifeblood for nothing in return, just an itch where I feel your drills and your jackhammers and bulldozers.”

“I’m sorry.”

Percy did not know how to apologize on behalf of all humankind. She pointed at the bridge and its traffic.

“Do you not feel it too? Your father is the earthshaker. Just as well, they pollute your waters.”

Percy looked down. Floating along in the current: glass bottles, styrofoam cups, plastic wrappers. He knelt down and dipped a finger in the water. Nausea came over him. His energy was sapped through his fingerprint. He withdrew and the feeling went away.

“This region used to be under the care of an indigenous tribe, the Nez Perce. In French, the _Nez Percé,_ ” she pronounced it in impeccable French, almost like his first name. “Meaning ‘pierced nose.’ They respected me. They did not take the earth for granted.”

She smirked.

“I think this is why I have taken a liking to you. Your name reminds me of a better time. Better people.”

Percy frowned.

“You tried to kidnap me,” he said bitterly. “The monsters who attacked me mentioned you.”

“Is that better or worse than erasing your past, which the goddess Hera has done?”

Percy did not know the answer to that question. Something tickled at the word _Hera_.

“I only wanted to talk with you, away from your friends. My apologies for the needless violence, my empousai can get overzealous,” she said.

“Hera did this to me?” he asked. “As in Juno, Queen of the Gods?”

The earth woman smiled.

“Yes, the Greek and Roman can be confusing. Different aspects, same deity. The Romans plagiarized everything from the Greeks. Made their mythos more war-like, disciplined.”

The roots of his dysphoria illuminated themselves to him and understanding finally clicked into place, for why he did not feel a sense of belonging at Camp Jupiter. 

“I’m not a Roman demigod, am I?” Percy asked.

“You catch on quickly, son of Poseidon.”

“Poseidon…” Percy lost himself in the way the Columbia trailed past him in dark blue rivulets. The earth woman stood over him like a guardian.

“Why would the queen of the gods want my memory?” he whispered.

As if on cue, the frayed edges of where his memories were torn out from their cerebral fabric flickered with an unpleasant heat, like book pages catching on fire. Percy gripped his forehead.

“My son, the titan Kronos, went to war with the gods last summer. He was defeated…by you.”

“By me?”

“The margin was slim. A true Pyrrhic victory. Hera decided it was in the gods’ best interest to unite their Greek and Roman children, to prevent another win so narrow.”

“But why have we been separated?” Percy asked. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“Because you hate each other,” she said matter-of-factly. “And, to put it one way, you are the Greeks’ peace offering. An exchange of leadership.”

“I was with the Greeks? When? For how long?” he spewed. “Are they looking for me?”

Percy vomited questions. He did not know where to start, where to end. The earth woman held the key to a vault of information about his life. He could finally find out who he _is_ , or at least, who he was. Nausea came over him again, but out of fear, not the water quality. What if he did not like who he was before? What if information about his old life changed the way he saw Teddy? His friends? She said that the Greeks and Romans despised each other. What if the puzzle piece he gets from her was simply prejudice and hatred?

Her earthen form began to tremble. She smiled sadly.

“In due time. I am receding into slumber once again, I cannot hold this form for much longer,” she said.

“How do I get back to my friends?” Percy asked.

“Your paths have diverged,” she said with finality. “You must continue on your separate ways. I offer you my protection and my patronage, though I cannot do the same for them. You must be trained properly if you are to save me.”

“Save you? From what?”

“Humanity,” she gestured at the bridge and its telltale clouds of exhaust. “They cannot kill me, but they force me to sleep. And see my own destruction in my dreams, lucid to my own demise.”

He remembered the drain he felt when he touched the polluted water. _This goddess must feel that way all the time._

“I want to help you,” Percy said. The earth woman grinned.

“Seek out my son, Polybotes,” she said, crumbling into dirt. “He will teach you.”

And the goddess was gone.


End file.
